Everybody knows about La Cage Aux Folles, the French play that became a movie, a Broadway musical, and later adapted into the American film The Birdcage starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. But, few people know there were sequels to the film.

In the first La Cage Aux Folles, the life of long-term gay couple Renato and Albin, who own and perform at the drag club downstairs, is disrupted when Laurent, Renato’s son from a previous fling, returns home from school announcing his impending marriage to the daughter of a conservative family values politician. Laurent tells Renato and Albin they can’t be the people they’ve established themselves to be when he invites the fianceé over for dinner, and much comedic drama ensues.

La Cage Aux Folles II brings the message of identity and closets back to home. After being swooned by a younger “suitor,” Albin finds the suitor planted some very wanted microfiche into his jacket. In order to escape with their lives, they have to return to Renato’s home in a podunk country town in Italy, where Albin attempts to pass for Renato’s girlfriend, taking on a traditional woman’s role while Renato is sucked into the cult of masculinity.

What is masculine? What is feminine? Do these terms have meaning? Does drag and homosexuality fly in the face of that? What of the past? What do your origins tell about how you exist as a person? Are gay people with conservative families trying to escape their background? What will momma think when you come out of the closet in your 50s? These are all variations on themes many many queer people have faced in their life in and out of the closet, and the themes are all flying under the radar of La Cage Aux Folles II. There are some definite sequel-itis failures (the microfiche is perhaps one of the dumbest MacGuffins ever), but beyond the surface plot issues La Cage II delves deep into some of the gay communities biggest neuroses.

La Cage Aux Folles II airs Sunday morning at 4:00 am.