[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, welcome back to room for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: A space to work queer voices thrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host P and every single week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to sit down, get vulnerable, and talk about all things queer with all of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for returning listeners, you'll know that it has been a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did take a whole month off as my fiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can say that now, my fiance, Crystal and I explored Portugal and Spain together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt like that trip was so needed in many, many ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially from a creative lens, actually, it was really good to get out of the city and just gain some new perspective by exploring these new places, and of course it was just such a memorable trip for so many reasons, but I also wanted to emphasize that I did so much reflecting as well on the podcast and what I want to continue to do with it, and I feel like going on that trip really helped me.
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of get that creative inspo again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is beautiful how just even like a change of environment or change of scenery can kind of help you get that spark back and you know it is pride month of course and what better ways you get back into doing weekly episodes for the podcast and
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, get a little input from all of you guys and what you think about this new format that I'm trying to get into a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course this podcast is still going to feature iconic queer guests and allies and I'll continue to dive deeper into
[SPEAKER_00]: My story, but I also am hoping for this podcast to kind of become a larger series on queer icons throughout history.
[SPEAKER_00]: People whose lives and identities and accomplishments really helped shape culture, even if they don't always get the recognition they deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there are so many people I think about, and when I do some Googling,
[SPEAKER_00]: We all feel the same way, but it feels like their story hasn't been told enough and they just really, really deserve that and they deserve that light to be shut on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to kick off our first episode on this like queer icons topic, we're going to be talking about someone who's story has fascinated me for many, many years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's episode is going to be all about Gia Karanjee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I first learned about Gia through the 1998 HBO film, Gia, starring my favorite Angelina Jolie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some of you probably already know exactly which movie I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has that really, really unforgettable scene where Angelina Jolie's character Gia tells Elizabeth Mitchell's character Linda that she's the most beautiful woman she's ever seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the
[SPEAKER_00]: scene in the apartment where Angelina just comes in with this like strong mask energy wearing leather jacket and she basically pushes Linda's boyfriend out of the way and you know confesses her love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And truly this movie was one of my many queer awakenings growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, Angelina Jolie has been one of my lifelong crushes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's probably the least original thing I've ever said, but it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wanted to point out though that what really stayed with me wasn't just the queer romance between Gia and Linda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, that was huge for me as a kid seeing that representation on TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: But more so it was the tragic life of such a young woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember watching Angelina Portray, this beautiful, charismatic, larger than life woman who seemingly had everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know whenever we see storylines like that, that is never the case, but I think this movie did such a good job at portraying how Gia had the fame, the obvious beauty, the money, the adoration, and then you just watch it all fall apart because of addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't really fully understand that as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also didn't understand the AIDS crisis at that time when I had seen Gia for the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also was still wrapping my head around trauma and what all of that really meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But overall, this story has really stuck with me and I've watched this movie so many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten my friends to watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember watching it with Crystal for the first time because she had never seen it before and Angelina's performance is out of this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she won a Golden Globe for this film and I remember I think it was at an afterparty.
[SPEAKER_00]: jumped into the pool like in her gown and everything to celebrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: She really really deserved that win because I feel like she really amulated this character so well and you can really feel her like Inji.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she did such an incredible job.
[SPEAKER_00]: So after falling in love with this movie, I really wanted to learn more about the real Gia Karanji.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her life was very, very complicated, and even more heartbreaking, in many ways, then obviously you'll get in a movie, I mean, the movie can only fit so much in what, like, under two hours, there's so much to her story and we're going to dive into everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about who Gia was, how she became one of the most influential models in fashion history, also her place in queer history, and why her story still matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: so many years after her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in many ways, I feel like Jo was a warning about what can happen when fame collides with trauma addiction, and also at a time where society is not equipped to actually support people who are vulnerable, you know, they're going through these awful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody understood what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't grasp that and there was still so much stigma.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get more into Gia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Gia Marie Carange was born on January 29, 1960 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
[SPEAKER_00]: She grew up in a working-class family and was the youngest of a few children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her childhood wasn't easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her parents had a very turbulent and often violent relationship, and when Gia was 11 years old, her mother left the family, creating a wound that many people who knew Gia believe she did carry that for the rest of her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends and relatives later would describe Gia as someone who
[SPEAKER_00]: desperately wanted affection and validation, and it could almost come off as this like neediness, and at times manipulative nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to point out that she was essayed as a young child, of course, a very, very traumatic experience that would leave blasting emotional scars in her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when people look back at Gia's life, it's difficult not to see how many of the struggles she faced later on were connected to the pain that she experienced early in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's something that's very, very important to acknowledge when we tell stories about addiction, especially stories involving famous people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's often a temptation to focus only on the self-destruction, but addiction rarely happens just out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: More often than not, it's connected to the trauma, loneliness, grief, or emotional pain someone feels throughout their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Gia had experienced all of those things before she ever kicked off her career, before she ever got into modeling, before she stepped on to the runway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we look at Gia as a teenager,
[SPEAKER_00]: She did find something that she desperately needed, and that was community.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read that she became obsessed with David Bowie, and she joined a group of friends who often referred to themselves as the Bowie kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't just about as music, like these were people who were experimenting with identity, fashion, sexuality, and self-expression.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they admire David Bowie because he challenged traditional ideas about masculinity and femininity.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wore makeup, he played with his gender presentation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He openly discussed his bisexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for queer teenagers in the 1970s, that was revolutionary.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Gia, she embraced that world wholeheartedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spent some time in Philadelphia's gay bars and clubs, and she was pretty open about her attraction to women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while labels were different back then than they are today, there's little question that Gia occupied a visible place within queer communities, long before that was common in mainstream culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that a lot of us do find particularly interesting is that Gia never seemed interested in just fitting neatly into anyone's expectations.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't trying to present herself as what society thought a woman should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she also wasn't trying to fit into like the specific lesbian stereotype at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was simply her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was very authentically Gia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's also one reason so many queer people still connect with her story today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gia was actually initially discovered at the age of 16 in a Philadelphia gay club by local hairdresser and aspiring photographer Maurice Tenon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had asked a photographer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later, Maurice showed the portfolio to his makeup artist friend Sandy Circa, who recognized Gia's potential in immediately contacted the legendary modeling agent,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was actually like, not just things like change in a heartbeat, but it kind of felt like that, because within months she was signed this major modeling agency for Wilhelmina.
[SPEAKER_00]: People were instantly captivated by her photographers, fashion editors, everybody, and it's really not difficult to understand why.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was also a time when the fashion industry largely favored very blonde that polished all American beauty and geo looked completely different.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had dark features, dark hair, very intense eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: A look that could be very glamorous one minute, but then also channel that endogenous feel the next.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, many historians and fashion experts now refer to Gia as the world's first supermodel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was before the era of celebrity models, before the age of household names like Naomi Campbell,
[SPEAKER_00]: Claudia Shifur, Cindy Crawford, you know, before all of these people there was Gia, and also I love to point out that people knew her by her name alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just Gia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of status is like on another level.
[SPEAKER_00]: So by the end of the 1970s, she was appearing on magazine covers around the world and working with the biggest names in fashion photography.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it wasn't like a gradual
[SPEAKER_00]: And she had once described it by saying she didn't build into a model, she just simply became one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing I don't know if this gets talked about enough is that how much GIA actually really changed beauty standards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today diversity and fashion is still an ongoing conversation, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: In the late 1970s, the industry was a little bit more rigid, but she has looked really challenged what beauty could be.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was definitely not delicate, she wasn't traditionally feminine, but she really projected this confidence in sexuality and vulnerability and strength all at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: and many people have compared her influence to what happened decades later when there were more androgynous models becoming more common in fashion campaigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really feel like Gia helps create that space for a different kind of beauty and that's part of why her legacy will always continue because we can still see traces of Gia's influence in fashion photography today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is room for host podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, we get into the queer side always in every episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I love is that what makes Gia such a significant queer icon is that she wasn't really necessarily hiding her queerness and at the same time the fashion industry has been long associated with queer people but visibility wasn't always welcomed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And being openly attracted to women in the late 1970s wasn't something most public figures would just discuss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many celebrities were encouraged to keep their sexuality private and many did.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Gia didn't seem particularly interested in pretending.
[SPEAKER_00]: She openly pursued women and many of her relationships were with women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people around her generally knew she was queer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while she never became like this activist in the traditional sense, visibility itself can just be powerful, you know, like showing up as yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I was doing a little more research into Gia and the queerness, I pulled a quote from an article in Strike magazine written by Jessica Geraldo.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we're going back to the 1998 film, the main romantic relationship she has in the film is with the character named Linda, who's played by Elizabeth Mitchell.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, it is important to note that they actually changed the name of the woman, who the character Linda was inspired by.
[SPEAKER_00]: The real name of the makeup artist, Gio, was romantically involved with, is named Sandy Linter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so from the article, Jessica writes, Linter met her during a photo shoot, recalling that Karanji took her feet and threw them over the desk and picked up my punk sunglasses, folded her arms and stared.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the beginning of a relationship that was intimate, loving, informative, yet ultimately ended in tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a big falling out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a famous story about her getting into my apartment through my bedroom window.
[SPEAKER_00]: I live on the 10th floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: That just brought me to my knees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, and I thought no, this girl is going to kill herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't going to happen, and she was not allowed in my apartment anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very sad to dive into a little bit more in terms of how this addiction had really taken over Gia's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So around this time when she was a famous supermodel,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was known that she was experimenting with drugs like cocaine at parties, but then she eventually became addicted to heroin, and after that her career had rapidly declined, which led to her quitting modeling in 1983, and we're going to get a little bit
[SPEAKER_00]: more into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is the scene of the film that I do believe that Sandy is referring to because they did portray this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Angelina gets up to the tenth floor where Linda is staying.
[SPEAKER_00]: She breaks through the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can see it's this very tumultuous, but also passionate loving relationship, but Linda's basically saying she cannot be with Gia if she's going to continue to be using because she can tell she is and ultimately she presents her this ultimatum, Linda to Gia saying,
[SPEAKER_00]: You can either be with me or you're choosing the drugs, essentially something like that and Gia does choose the drugs and walks away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is one of the last times they do see each other before Gia becomes really sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, we are going to be getting into this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that just shows how
[SPEAKER_00]: difficult addiction is to overcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also do think at that time to understand New York in the late 1970s like this was an era of disco and era of excess and you know, there's a lot of glamour freedom and I think like in some queer spaces.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even spaces like Studio 54, I was reading up that Gia, was a frequent fixture and cultural icon of this New York nightclub, and she would be frequently using various drugs, cocaine was very much normalized, drug use was everywhere, and substance abuse was actually kind of treated as part of that model lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for someone carrying the emotional looms that Gia carried, that environment is extremely toxic and could be incredibly dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the film highlighted this as like, I think they did a good job in showing how much
[SPEAKER_00]: Willemina, the modeling agent's death, really affected Gia, because this was actually one of the most significant moments in Gia's life in 1980, just a few years before Gia had actually died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mentor, her agent and friend Willemina Cooper, died from lung cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to Gia, this wasn't like a business relationship, I really think Willemina was the source of stability, someone who also really believed in Gia and someone who always looked out for her and protected her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was quite noted that after her death, people close to Gia noticed a very dramatic change.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was completely devastated and soon after her drug use escalated and she eventually became very addicted to heroin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would become the turning point where everything had really changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: As her hero in the addiction was worsening, people really did start to notice, and her professional life started collapsing.
[SPEAKER_00]: She missed shoots, she was walking offsets, she fell asleep during work, she was destroying kind of some of her professional relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like the fashion industry that had once really adored her became less patient and then she started not getting as many work opportunities.
[SPEAKER_00]: People with distance themselves and what makes that part of the story very difficult is that many people could see she was struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: But addiction treatment looked very different than it does today.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was really not much understanding far less compassion and much more judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think at that time, people would just see it's like they don't want to work with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's very easily replaceable kind of like that was her look back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember there was something like there was a scene where Gio was desperately trying to get more work and they were almost saying her Look wasn't in anymore or it's like now we need something a little more light.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need something more for summer and Gio was getting like a winter look It was something like that and it just kind of shows how quick the industry itself can be you know they'll turn on you
[SPEAKER_00]: So, G had attempted recovery multiple times, and sometimes it was successful, but maintaining sobriety often proved incredibly difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, now we're going to get into what ultimately caused G as death was the AIDS crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the most significant and tragic part of Gia's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the early 1980s, HIV and AIDS were spreading rapidly, but there was fear and misinformation about it everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people really did believe that AIDS only affected gay men and this obviously wasn't true, but that was the misconception that shaped public understanding for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is believed that Gia contracted HIV through contaminated needles related to the heroin use.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her diagnosis was significant because it challenged many assumptions people had about those who were affected by the AIDS epidemic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Women were being affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: People who use drugs were being affected and entire communities were
[SPEAKER_00]: Devastated, by the time Gia was diagnosed, Aids carried enormous stigma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people were even afraid to be near somebody who had this disease, and looking back now it's difficult to fully comprehend just how much fear surrounded HIV during that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what's really really sad, I mean, the final years of Gia's life were heartbreaking and she was so young.
[SPEAKER_00]: after enormous amounts of money during her modeling career.
[SPEAKER_00]: After earning all of that, she spent much of it, honestly battling addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: She ended up working some ordinary jobs, trying to rebuild her life, tried to stay sober, tried to find stability,
[SPEAKER_00]: But in many ways, her final years were just about the survival, and sadly, by 1986, her health had deteriorated significantly, and on November 18th, 1986, Gia died from AIDS-related complications, as I mentioned before, she was only 26 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I think about that age, it always always hits me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She accomplished more before 26 than most people do in a lifetime, but she'd also lost so much before turning 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scene where we see Angelina, character, and Elizabeth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There it's one of the last scenes where I believe Gia knows she's dying but she's not telling Linda this and it's an heartbreaking scene where she's kind of, you know, doing her apologies and working through that she wants to connect with the people that
[SPEAKER_00]: she distanced herself from and who she had heard and you can see in the scene that Linda, you know, thinks they still have more time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, let's catch up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember in the scene, she doesn't fully understand like what is happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't know that G.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: willy dying, but G.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think she knows that is like the last time she's probably ever going to see her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't actually know too much about this, but one of the most devastating details in Gia's story is actually what had happened after her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very few people attended her funeral, and notably almost no one from the fashion industry showed up, and it was the same industry that had celebrated her rise, like they were largely absent when she died, and I think that's something worth sitting with for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, there's a stigma, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: People still didn't really understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really teaches you how quickly people can turn on you, how quickly fame can disappear, how quickly industries move on, how easily people can be forgotten when they stop being useful for you, for your industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Gia will never be forgotten, and Gia was never forgotten, and I'm so grateful like I keep bringing up this film, but more than a decade after Gia's death, her story really did reach a new generation through the HBO film Gia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Angelina's performance, like 10 out of 10 extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many ways, I think it became one of the most defining performances of her career.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while the movie takes creative liberties, as a lot of these biographical films often do, it really did capture something important about Gia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it really captured her charisma, how lovable she wears her vulnerability, but also the self-destruction, and the loneliness that kind of seems to follow her throughout her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like for a lot of queer people and this is myself included, the movie was one of those rare times we saw a complex queer female character at the center of a major story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always say this matters representation matters even if the stories are messy or if they end tragically to conclude this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to emphasize that we will always still be talking about Gia Carongi.
[SPEAKER_00]: She changed fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: She challenged beauty standards.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lived openly as a queer woman during a period when that wasn't easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her life reminds us of the human cost of addiction and her death is connected to one of the most devastating public health crisis in modern history.
[SPEAKER_00]: and because behind all the headlines, the magazine cover she did, the photographs was just a real person who had a bit of a tragic upbringing.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was someone who was searching for love, connection, and ultimately acceptance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's why a lot of people continue to connect with her and they can't shake her story.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was far from perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was brilliant and she was flawed, strong and vulnerable, and very confident, but at the same time had insecurities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that makes for story truly unforgettable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you did enjoy listening to this episode, and you learned a little bit more about Gia Carange.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's anything else you want me to cover, or any more queer icons you want me to get into, I am more than happy to keep shedding light on these amazing people who have definitely made history and have made an impact in our world, especially in the world of queerness when we need more representation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with that, I am going to end the episode there, but I will see you all next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for tuning in.