#48 | Why Maxxie LaWow Is the Queer Superhero We Need Now (Hope & Representation in LGBTQ Animation)

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. Filled with awesome guests, practical strategies, and moving stories, host Heather Hester always makes you feel like you're having a cozy chat. Wherever you are on this journey, right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone. And here is Heather for this week's amazing episode.

Welcome to Just Breathe. I am so happy that you are here. Today I have a really fun guest on the show. Anthony Hand is a creator, producer, and director, and he is here today to talk about his feature-length animated film called Maxi Lawow: Drag Super Shero. This amazing animated film will introduce viewers to pop culture's very first drag heroine. Anthony is a product designer and a former entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, where he puts his storytelling skills to use on a daily basis. Anthony has seen every season of RuPaul's Drag Race since season 1, He frequents local and national cabaret and theater and is a recovering comic book geek. Drag legend Dina Martina is his spirit totem. I am really excited to share this interview with you all, so sit back and enjoy. Good morning. So Anthony, I am absolutely thrilled to have you on the show today and to hear your story and to hear all about this just amazing movie that I have alluded to in this introduction. But before we dive into learning about Maxie, I would like to get to know you a little bit better and to have my— let my listeners get to know you a little better and kind of your drive to creating Maxie LaWao.

That sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it.

Of course, of course, it is gonna be fun. So, so tell me just a little bit about, um, just who you are and what kind of got you to this point of creating this drag superhero.

Oh my goodness. Well, uh, So about this Drag Superhero story in particular, I came up with the original concept of the show, the one part of it I should say, the hero story in a way. And the hero story is that Simon is a shy young barista and he finds a magic wig that turns him into the titular drag superhero Maxie Lalao. I came up with that about 2 years ago and I originally, I thought maybe I'll make a book of it or maybe a graphic novel. But I was struggling with like what happens after he finds that magic wig. And last year in April-ish, March-ish 2020, when the world locked down and it was crazy outside and crazy stressful inside, I had more time for self-reflection and looking out for various kinds of inspiration. And that's when I came up with a story of our villain. And our villain, uh, just real quick, her name is Dinabolical, and she has discovered that drag queen tears have magical anti-aging properties. So she's been kidnapping queens in town and forcing them to watch the saddest movie ever made, Beaches 2, to harvest their tears and launch a new cosmetics line. And now she's after Maxie and her superpower tears to go global and become filthy rich.

Oh my gosh, I mean, seriously, so awesome in so many ways. And I will tell you all that I, I just got to have a little sneak peek of this, um, and it is awesome and funny and just so clever. And, you know, knowing the— for everyone out there who, you know, are RuPaul fans and who are drag fans will find just so much humor embedded in this. I mean, already just in those 2 minutes I was like, oh my gosh, that's so funny. Oh my gosh, that's like so spot on. I mean, goodness gracious. So what do you, um, you, you touched a little bit on coming up with Dynabolical, which is Bravo. Mm-hmm.

Um, isn't that a great name?

It's a fantastic name. I love it. It's, uh, you know, it's along the lines of just, I always giggle, you know, Harry Potter, like all of the different names in there where you're like, oh my gosh, that's so fantastic what that actually means. Anyway, sorry, little, little aside there on the nerdiness in my house. But anyway, how do you feel that, you know, and you touched on this a little bit with last year and just really the last 18 months and kind of the, They're not words, right? I'm, I'm struggling for words because it's been, there have been so many like, oh my goodness, we're good. Oh no, we're not. Like, what do we do? Where are we going? What's going on? What should, you know? And so how do you feel like that has those up and down emotions and just the uncertainty played into really helping you flesh this out?

Well, uh, tremendously actually. And, uh, there's a little bit of a preface to this also. So in January of 2020, just before all of this COVID business really hit America, I actually suffered a detached retina in my left eye. And I was out of work for almost a month. I had 2 emergency surgeries that required me to be in certain positions. So I spent about a week on one side with a gas bubble in my eye trying to help the retina reattach. That didn't work. So I had a second surgery that was, I will spare you the graphic details, but the second surgery required me to be face down in a massage chair for a week. I could get up to the bathroom and eat, and that was about it. And so I had an iPad on that little armrest, and let's just say I spent a lot of time binge-watching shows like Schitt's Creek and Letterkenny and a whole bunch more. And during this time, you know, I was not in a place mentally where I wanted to watch a lot of mentally, emotionally challenging films or TV shows.

Sure.

Um, you know, I wanted to watch, uh, I wanted to watch more like romantic comedies, but not just about, you know, boy gets the girl. I've seen that plenty, and, you know, I'm okay with it. So I wanted to see more boy gets boy and even girl gets girl, you know. And there aren't a lot of great romantic comedies that are, that have queer themes. And, you know, there aren't also just like, just a lot of fun, campy shows in general. And so this resolved— I really came out of this experience resolving that I was going to take Maxie to the big screen. I was going to find a way to come up with a great story and then see it through. And so that's, you know, we're— Wow. We've still got 2 more years ahead of us to get the film produced, but, uh, but we're, we're doing it, man. We're doing it.

Oh my gosh. I love that. Isn't it interesting how oftentimes these fabulous ideas come from just incredible struggles, um, and, and shift your life in a way that you would never have seen it. You know, you would never see it coming and you would never have come up with this idea had you know, whatever hardship or difficulty, you know, not happen to you. And I think that's just, you know, a fascinating thing, um, about life in general and just thinking, you know, about, about my life as well. Um, I would not be doing this had it not have been for, you know, everything that, that we went through and learned and, and are still continuing to learn. Um, And I just feel so incredibly blessed. And I think in a similar way, you, you've, when you open yourself up to that and you're like, okay, well, what's, what's coming? What's the direction? What do I need to do? And instead of fighting it, just kind of letting it come to you and being like, this is what I need to do with this character. She doesn't need to be in a book. She needs to be on the big screen. The, the world needs to see this. And, um, and I think that, you know, from just that 2 minutes and, and our chatting and what I've read, that you are doing this in a way that is very accessible. It's not just for, you know, I mean, obviously it's gonna attract all RuPaul fans out there, right? All drag fans out there. Um, And, and really, and I'd like to talk about this a little bit and your thoughts and your—

Sure.

Because obviously you have a very deep understanding and appreciation for the art of drag. So, you know, how does that play into it? And, and what made you just think, you know what, this is a really great way to bring this to the world?

Well, um, So a couple points there. One was about being accessible. And when I think about who is going to like this film, I think of these 4 fandoms. I think of, first of all, this is a film by LGBTQ creators or queer creators for our community. And so, you know, that is one core part of the fandom. Anyone who likes animation, anyone who likes superheroes are going to be able to relate really well also. And then this 4th fandom, I think is this like emerging fandom around drag, you know, and what's really interesting is when I've read some articles about the demographics of who watches RuPaul's Drag Race and Dragula even, but who watches RuPaul's Drag Race, this show has expanded to the UK and Holland and Spain and down under. And their audience is probably at least half straight women. And so this is kind of different from these other fandoms. You know, I doubt the demographics are half straight women on superheroes. And then LGBTQ, you know, it's by definition about, you know, queer people. So this I see as being our large army of allies, you know, our coworkers, our friends, our family, you know, and I really want this to be appealing to our allies as well. And maybe a little bit subversively.

I love that. I really think that is what a great way to offer just education and insight in a way that is, is not threatening and, um, with humor, um, with You know, and in a format that everybody can relate to, right? You know, good defeats evil. Everybody can relate to that, right?

Exactly. Good defeats evil. And, you know, it's kind of coming up, it's kind of a coming of age story that I think is also universally relatable. So Simon is this shy young barista and he, you know, his friends have all gone off to college or gone off into the military. He's 21, turning 21 years old. And he's still in his hometown working at the Pink Unicorn Cafe, where he's worked for years, and he makes the best glitter lattes in town.

I'm sure he does.

But, but he, he's really timid. He doesn't have the courage to ask this handsome guy who comes into the cafe nearly every day, doesn't have the courage to ask him out or ask anybody out, for example. But when But he has this hidden reserve that he doesn't know he has. And so when the wig finds him, the wig chooses him. And why? And so we'll explore that a little bit too. And then when he turns into Maxie, he, like RuPaul says, drag reveals who you are and who you have the potential to be. And so Maxie is this brash, confident person, who is exactly who he can be, and he just kind of needs to catch up to her. And so right in the beginning, this— in this film, it's a little bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde kind of situation. But I really kind of envisioned this process, and I'd like to see us have a TV series after this or a couple other movies where we can explore how Simon kind of comes into himself/herself with Maxie LaValle also.

Right. Oh wow. I love that. You know, another piece of this is just elevating the LGBTQ community in a way that is like, hey, this isn't scary. We're, we're nothing to be afraid of. Everyone who's afraid, from what you've said so far and what I have seen, the potential is extraordinary. And, and it's based on very simple principles. Um, but you've, you have gone about this in a way That is really beautiful. And I'm just, I'm really excited for you and I'm really excited for, I mean, y'all have to wait till March 2024 to see this, but it's coming. It's coming. So we're giving you a really early sneak peek and teaser on this. So I wanna shift a little bit, um, and talk about your, you know, you, you've mentioned a little bit the, you know, superhero. Obviously, this came from somewhere for you. And I understand that you have quite a love of comic books and how that has worked into creating an animated film as opposed to making Maxie Lowell a live person.

Right. So in high school, I was kind of addicted to comics. I spent I had a high school job at McDonald's and I spent all my money on comics, uh, and, you know, mail order or going to this little— I grew up in a small farming community, by the way, in southeastern Michigan, like an hour from Ann Arbor. This village had 600 people and a tiny school. I lived on a farm here. We had some cows, pigs, and chickens. And so I think for me, comic books— not only was all the awesomeness that that are comic books, but also a little bit of escapism, you know, and get to see life in the big city and out in the bigger world. And there is this little comic book shop in the neighboring city that sold cigars and sold liquor and had popcorn always fresh and then had comic books. I think they had porn too, but I wasn't caring about the porn. I was just in there for the comic books. So, and, you know, there's this kind of certain smell from all the cigars mixing with the popcorn and everything. And maybe this also kind of informs what causes drag queen tears to be particularly magical.

But, um, hmm.

No. Oh my gosh. If only I'd have spent that money on the stock market and invested in Apple instead, you know, I'd be sitting on a beach in the Mediterranean drinking margaritas or something.

Oh my gosh. But then Maxi LaWow would never have come to be.

Exactly. Well, you know, my parents kind of made me give up comic books to go to college to like focus and, and everything. And so I still kind of pay attention to comic books a little bit since then and watch, um, like to watch some movies, of course. But yeah, so this is why I call myself a recovering comic book addict.

Yes, which I, which I, I appreciate, totally appreciate. So is that, you know, is that why that you decided to make Maxie animated as opposed to, or you were kind of looking at the graphic novel, which is kind of the, the, you know, next step from a comic book. Okay. Here she is on screen. She's going to be animated, but instead of ever considering making her, you know, live.

Yeah. You know, it probably would be a little bit cheaper, honestly, to do it live action instead. But I think by going animation, we can. Bring her world to life in a way that's just a lot more rich, a lot more colorful, a lot more stylized. And I think being a movie about— with drag in particular, drag itself is kind of— it's everything is so elevated and artistic, more kind of like artistic exploration. And I think that we will have an easier time when our world has like were-unicorns in it, uh, rather than werewolves, we have were-unicorns, or, you know, a biker, a women's biker gang that are actually fairies and can transform into fairies. So, and then there's another story with a demon who's a DJ and, uh, he tries to take over the world. And, uh, you know, it's just, it'll be a lot more fun to kind of bring this stylized world to life using animation, I think.

Sure, sure. Well, it allows for a lot more creativity and direction, your direction of that creativity, right? Just thinking about the, you know, the whole drag piece here, which is all of it, and we love that. How did you, you know, what sparked your interest in drag? And kind of what was your, your journey to here to this point?

So I'll, I'll admit I came to, I came out to myself in the '80s. So I'm 52 years old now. And, and, and in the beginning, I didn't really care for drag. And, you know, maybe this is because I grew up on a farm and I went to college at Michigan State. There wasn't a lot of drag around. And then in 2000, I moved to Boston. And for those who don't know, there's, you know, Cape Cod at the outer tip, there is this town called Provincetown. And Provincetown has been a countercultural haven for a century, honestly, you know, all the hippies and the beatniks and so on would go there and for holiday for a long, long time. And in 2000, when I started going there, I— that's where I really came to appreciate drag as an art form and a platform for storytelling, a platform for, you know, making fun of gender conventions, for making fun of politics, and, you know, all this stuff like this, poking at all of this, as well as, of course, just good clean/dirty fun. And so that's where I came across, you know, Varla Jean Merman and Dina Martina and Miss Richfield, for example. And I love all of these drag queens. And, and that's also where you can go and see Broadway stars will come and do fireside chats, or gay comedians, or piano bars. It's just a wonderful place. And what's great too is it's kind of like the streets of Schitt's Creek, if you watch that show, where people don't care if you're gay. They don't, they don't care. It's just another, you know, you're just a neighbor slash, you know, friend or whatever. And so you'll see families just wandering on the street and then you'll see gay couples holding hands and you've got someone else with like a crazy costume because there's like a great sense of carnival pretty much year round there. And art, it's kind of like an artist colony as well. And, you know, it's all like these, these folks mixing together. It's just really, really wonderful and magical.

That is awesome. And what a great way to kind of be initially exposed to it and then to really learn about it in a rather small way, right? Small but large.

Mm-hmm.

Because it is world, you know, everybody knows Provincetown, but it, it also, you know, unless you've been there, you just don't know the experience. Um, so I think that's really, really lovely.

Exactly.

So that going there opened my eyes to drag, but then I started noticing that there In the Boston/Provincetown area, there's this playwright named Ryan Landry, who has brought together these basically neo-hippie performers, and they put on big fabulous plays. They're like, they have typically have a female character they cast as a drag queen, and they've got drag kings and other amazing folks. And all of his stories are just campy and brilliant. And then I'd say, you know, with RuPaul's Drag Race launching in, what was it, 2009, And the years following that, you know, she has her TV show. You know, that first year was, was like a low-budget production, but it was fabulous what they did with, with their little production dollars. And who knew that it would explode the way it has and open the door for so many other projects? You know, now we can see on so many— HBO and some other Networks, we can see like drag transformation shows, like where drag queens come in kind of like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, come in and transform somebody. And then there's, you know, I'm totally crying by the end, whatever happens, I'm crying.

Cause it's beautiful.

Just like Queer Eye every time.

Oh, every time. Oh my gosh.

Yes.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. Quite extraordinary what she's done.

And then, you know, because I think that in part because of RuPaul's Drag Race and opening the door for making drag much more accessible outside of the bars and outside of, you know, drag queens have also been so important to the LGBTQ community for raising money for charities. And not just, I mean, drag queen group, drag queens as individuals, or also part of bigger groups like the Imperial Court or the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. These groups, as well as individuals, have raised so much money for AIDS charities and for queer youth charities and for queer elder care charities. I mean, as well as just other charities in the local community. But, you know, drag culture is— this is one reason why drag culture is such a big part of being in the LGBTQ community.

Sure. Um, yeah, I think it is one of those things. You're absolutely right. Um, that, I mean, obviously for me, a lot of it has been because Connor has introduced it to us as a family, but then, you know, being curious and wanting to understand and learn, I've just been so taken by, um, the power of, of, and not only the charities, but just like the overall awareness. And the, um, and, and bringing it to people who may normally may had not, it may not have ever crossed their path, right? Something that in their, you know, had, had this not had RuPaul not, you know, done what she's done. And then all of these side stories that are just so extraordinary. I just think that's done such a beautiful thing for the community and, and bringing in people who are not part of the community, who are like, who are allies now because of that.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Um, and it's a, and it's a lovely way to just to communicate and to connect because, you know, I, I think at, at the very base, you have to appreciate the, the art form of, you know, looking when you see like what goes into the creation, and it's extraordinary.

Oh my goodness, so much work. I mean, to come up with a concept and then to find music that goes with it, to tell that mini story, that 3-minute story, uh, and then to create it all oftentimes from scratch on a budget of like $15 maybe. I mean, creativity and hard work that goes into this is extraordinary.

It is extraordinary. It really, really is. It is, um, you know, and it's funny, just kind of an aside story. So Connor goes to NYU and, um, he, uh, is in the, the gay frat there, which I— we giggle about all the time because he was like, I will never be in a fraternity ever. And then they have a gay frat, so why not? Um, but one, one of his One of his sisters is competing, you know, just, she's just starting out as, you know, as a drag queen. Um, and so he, anyway, I just giggle cuz he like, you know, he's, oh, will tell me, you know, how she put this outfit together, like you're saying, on nothing. You know, she's a college kid.

Mm-hmm.

And, and then competing and these, you know, small competitions in New York City. But how cool is that? I mean, So it's been really fun for him to kind of come from having watched so much RuPaul and then now being able to kind of participate as, you know, a supporter at this point. Um, and watching it live.

Oh my God.

Very small basis is cool. Yeah. Yeah.

And New York has such a rich tradition of drag and I mean, drag is so diverse anyways, as far as all different kinds of traditions and perspectives and approaches and everything. But that must just be amazing being in New York and in the drag scene in some way.

Yeah.

I think he, you know, I think sometimes he's kind of like, you know, pinch me. This is, this is really just extraordinary. Yes. Very, very cool. And then I remind him that he's also there to get an education. Um, so totally, totally, which he, I mean, he, he's doing great, but I do have to giggle when he's like, I did this and I did this and I did this. And I'm like, did you go to class? This is so, so funny.

Oh, I remember those days.

How fun, right? I mean, don't you? And there's part, like, I'm sure you do the same thing that I do where I'm like, oh yeah, that's really— you should be, be young because then you're gonna have to just have all kinds of responsibilities and you can never go back to being this age again, right? Like, this is such a lovely little bubble of time.

So anyway, it is a wonderful special time where you can experiment and grow and all without having your parents to see you making silly mistakes.

Right. Well, exactly. I'm like, I've, I've seen enough. I don't need to see.

I bet. I bet.

Oh my gosh. Well, and now we have such a, you know, it's a lovely open relationship and, you know, we went from him being, you know, hiding everything, and, um, to now he tells me everything. And there are times where I'm like, yeah, still your mom, still didn't need to know that.

Like, didn't need to know that. That's hilarious. My mom and I have a really open relationship now also. And my father passed, uh, during COVID when I was working on the Maxi project. But thank you. Uh, and we also had a really, uh, open and supportive relationship. So I'm so glad that Connor has, uh, you and your husband in his life. He is honestly more blessed than he may realize. So that's wonderful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I think he's beginning to realize that now that he's away from home and meeting other kids, um, where he'll say, you know, he'll tell me stuff and I'll be like, ah, mom. I'm like, yeah, I know it's good for you to be out there and and, and realize that perspective on things, right? Really good perspective. Yeah. Not, not all parents, you know, certainly not. I will be the first to say that we did not do everything perfectly and made plenty of mistakes, but loving him and supporting him have always been the, the bottom line of everything we've done. So, and I think he knows that. So I am wondering, um, just kind of, you just mentioned your mom, which I think, and your dad, which is so lovely and Coming out in the '80s, how, how was that?

And, oh my gosh, that was tough.

I can imagine. Just knowing that, you know, several friends of mine from high school that, you know, have come out since and who, um, you know, were pretty open at the time, but it just wasn't necessarily safe, um, or welcome, frankly, right? And so knowing that you could— you definitely, you know, you went through that too. And I, I grew up in a smaller town in Ohio, so, you know, being Midwest, you know, in the Midwest, like, totally get that, right? At what point did you go right to Boston from Michigan State, and how did that work with like coming out in college and then with your parents and Do you have any thoughts you'd like to share? Yeah.

So growing up in this small farming village in Michigan, you know, it was very rural and it felt like it was a decade behind the rest of the country. At least my parents were both— my mom said that she was lucky she graduated from high school and my dad only got as far as 8th grade. And he grew up in literally a dirt poor family where they had They lived in a basement, unfinished basement with no house above it. They started digging a basement.

Oh my goodness gracious.

And they never finished it. And so, you know, from that perspective, I'm thinking about my quality of life growing up. I had a lot better probably situation than either of them had growing up. And, you know, they tried their best to provide for us. I have one brother and and provide a kind of home that we needed to grow up in and thrive in, you know, and, you know, they weren't perfect. And I would say that just from like the relationship perspective with my parents, I went through a phase in college where I really hated my family. And I think this was just a phase I had to go through. I, you know, in college, I saw all these rich kids who'd come from the rich suburbs of Detroit, the rich suburbs of Chicago, Chicago. And I had this, you know, when we think about intersectionality and all the different aspects of who we are, race is one, socioeconomic background is another, LGBTQ and others. And for me, like that, I had to kind of go through this reconciliation process with my socioeconomic sort of origins, I guess. And at the end of the day, I've done well. So, you know, it's all good. But yes. And then I had to have some challenging conversations with my mother. And that probably happened. So I came out to my brother at Christmas in my senior year because I wanted to go meet my boyfriend at the time in Ann Arbor for dinner. And my brother, I think he had the car. So he was driving and had to have that chat on the way there. And he was cool with it.

BTW.

Of course. Totally. And my brother honestly has been awesome because he, he, he is so secure in his heterosexuality that he would hold his ex-wife's purse. He didn't care, you know, and he didn't care about me being gay. And I had a great relationship with his kids. It was awesome. I've been seriously blessed with my brother, as much as I like to criticize him, as siblings do.

That's right. That's what we do.

Absolutely. And then after college, I went to D.C. for a couple of years, and then I went to Japan to teach English for 3 years and again lived in the countryside for those 3 years. My mom came out to visit me for a month in Japan. Now, keep in mind that girlfriend had never traveled abroad before. We had to get her a passport. She had flown domestically but had never been outside the United States. And so her first trip is to Japan, of all places.

That's a long trip.

Yeah, it was a long trip. So we spent about 2 weeks traveling around together on the bullet train, and we had some big, heavy conversations. We had to work through some things. She had found out I was gay, like, 3 weeks before I left. So, uh, it was a good chance where she had had time to do some processing, and thank God I didn't have to witness that, to be perfectly honest. Uh, so, so it was time for us to like synchronize and come to terms. It worked out fine.

Oh, good.

She had some crazy adventures in Japan that she still likes to talk about too, of course.

Oh, I'm sure.

And then my father Yeah, and my father, he and I never had a coming out conversation. I think my brother mentioned something at some point. But, you know, by the time I got back to America, we had to go through a certain kind of reconciliation process too. My father was always so emotionally separated from the rest of the family, and he and my mother had divorced after I graduated college. But, you know, we are all products of our time to a certain extent. And, you know, and he had his own challenges growing up. And so, you know, he was able internally to reconcile them. And so was mom, because I remember when I was growing up, my parents both making really very negative comments about gay people they might see on TV or something. So, you know, we all had to do some mutual reconciliation with each other. And I'm really blessed to say that, that things have worked out beautifully by the time I, I reached like the age of 30. So, oh, it took a while, but we got there.

That's really great. That's really good though. I mean, and I think, you know, it sounds to me like the biggest, you gave your parents both a lot of space to process, which I think a lot of times, you know, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, whomever, mm-hmm, just need that processing time. And then. Communicating. I mean, you were not afraid to communicate and to talk things through and allow for some grace.

Mm-hmm. That was part of where I had to come to also, because I, you know, in that process that all, all people have where they realize that their parents aren't perfect, that they have flaws. Yes. And I think that was part of the reason why I went through that phase in college where I just didn't like my family so much. Um, it was part of like probably that process.

Sure.

And then I had to come to the point where I realized that for whatever reason I needed to kind of meet them where they were and accept them for who they were. And, and that was kind of a hard place for me to get to, as for many children, you know, um, with their own parents too.

So, yes, I think that's a very, very difficult thing to do. Um, absolutely. So bravo. And, and I'm so happy that you were able to do that, especially with your father before he passed, because that would be difficult.

Mm-hmm.

Very difficult.

Very blessed from that perspective, for sure.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh goodness. Well, that—

thank you for sharing that with us. I know it has.

I'm really sorry. I just, I think, you know, I, I know that my audience will really appreciate hearing, you know, it's always great to hear different perspectives and different stories and, um, of coming out and, and, you know, how it works with parents. So thank you for sharing yours with us. And yes, let's— I want to definitely circle back because I also want to be respectful of your time. Um, but I do want to end our conversation by talking more about Maxie. Um, so what are you— I know I'm just, I'm really obviously very excited about this and I can't wait. Um, so one thing I want to put out there, everybody, Um, we are talking about this today because Anthony and the people he is working with, um, they are launching an Indiegogo campaign, um, to help raise money for this initial stage of producing Maxi Lowao. And so I will have links to that, um, attached to this episode and on my website and all over the place because I think this is just such a beautiful really unique opportunity, um, and it's a unique opportunity for us to be part of, um, you know, to, you know, show our appreciation and our excitement, you know, to you for having the courage to create something that's so different. So thank you. Of course.

Yeah. So just visit Maxi— visit Maxi.com and, uh, you'll find links to our, uh, all of our socials. So Instagram and Facebook, our handles there are Maxxie Lawow, M-A-X-X-I-E L-A-W-O-W. Honestly, it's just easy to go to maxxie.com and click on the links.

Yeah, we'll just click, we'll click through there.

Yeah, and that's where you'll also see the 2-minute, um, little adventure reel, I like to call it, because it is a concept piece for where we want to go with the movie., and we'll do further refinement when, of course, we get there. But you can get a sense for what we want to do with, like, the visuals and how we want to stylize MaxiWorld and the kinds of fun story— this is the kind of fun story this is, but also the kinds of fun stories we want to do in the future. And at the end of the day, you know, I would love it, of course, if you could find it in your heart or purse strings to make a donation. But either way, please feel free to sign up for our, our VIP list, which is our very low frequency newsletter. Because, you know, part of the reason I think why so few good LGBTQ-oriented movies get made in Hollywood is I don't know that Hollywood believes that there is a real audience for this content. And so that's one thing I also helped to prove with this, with this project is there is an audience for great LGBTQ themed content and our allies want to see it also. Our allies wanna see these great stories too.

Absolutely. Oh my goodness. And I'm so glad you said that because I think that is an incredibly accurate and powerful statement. And that is something that, um, we all can be a part of helping. That's something when people say, what can I do? This is what you can do, right? You know, it's 2 seconds. This is something that is really just— you can forward it on to a friend, you can, you know, make a donation if you so wish to, you know, to do so, um, put it on your social. And these, these little things do make a difference. And, um, there, there is an audience out there. And I think that just because just because, uh, the audience isn't loud, um, doesn't mean it's not there.

Right? Absolutely.

So, absolutely. So just have to keep, you know, you know it in your gut. I know it in my gut. That's why we keep doing what we do.

Yeah. And you know, we face very similar obstacles with other underrepresented groups. Um, I would say with regards to Hollywood stories, uh, think about how many really great black or African American themed movies there are where there is a hero and, you know, they're, they have the agency or, or women-driven movies also. You know, I would say that we as a country, as a culture, need to be better to tell more great stories from other, all the underrepresented groups.

Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I could not agree more. It is something that, and I think that It does seem like there's movement there, um, at least in the some movement. Oh, um, awareness piece. Now, if that gets, whether or not that gets through to all the way to, you know, Hollywood and the producers, um, that's, that's another story altogether. But I think at least in the awareness piece of people being like, yeah, we, we need to see this. We wanna understand this. We wanna, we wanna learn. We're curious. Like, put this out there. So it's a really great point.

Absolutely. And on my website, um, on maxa.com, you'll see at the bottom it says support local drag, uh, or support drag and support, uh, how do I say, support local drag and support queer voices. Uh, and so, you know, if you love drag, if you're comfortable going to places where there are drag shows, go and have fun, bring your friends and Have a great time and be great allies to other folks who, you know, make these spaces their home and bring lots of dollars so you can tip generously.

That's right. Absolutely. I learned that from my first drag show. I was like, oh, I have like $3. That's not enough. Like, you need a lot more than that.

That's just a start.

That's just a start. That's not going to get you for the first song. Oh my gosh, that's such a great point. Oh my goodness. Well, Anthony, thank you so, so much for joining us today and, um, just being so honest and lovely with sharing your beautiful story. Um, and I just have really good feelings about this. Um, I'm so excited to see the whole thing.

I'm in God's ears.

Right.

Oh my gosh.

Yes. Here we go. Yes, absolutely. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do appreciate you sharing.

Thank you, Heather. And thank you for all you do. I really love your podcast also. Thank you again for having me on today.

Thanks so much for joining Heather today. Remember to just breathe. Take a few minutes every day to calm and center yourself. Reach out anytime. With ideas, questions, or feedback. Please rate and review Just Breathe on your favorite platform. Subscribe to Heather's website, www.chrysalismama.com, to receive her monthly newsletter and stay informed. Join the private Just Breathe Facebook community to chat with other parents and allies, and share with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone.