Feb 21 2005
A Gay Sunday
Could it have been a more gay weekend? First my daughter insisted I watch the Bravo network’s marathon of “Project Runway,” because (a) she loves it; (b) since starting to write mostly about movies I’d dropped reality-TV like a cold potato; and (c) this week, the who’s-the-best-designer competition reaches its two-hour finale. Boy (or girl), am I glad I heeded my offspring: “Runway,” as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you fans is a hoot and a half, complete with a traduced victim (the pencil-thin, swirlingly coiffed Austin should never have been voted off, (damn you, Nancy O’Dell!!), the gay wit we wish we had as a pal (Jay, a sort of Paul Lynde crossed with a tubby pirate), and villain (Wendy Pepper; great name for a clothing line; too bad she doesn’t have the talent to start one).
No sooner had the “Runway” marathon ended than “The Simpsons” began, with the long-awaited gay-marriage themed episode. Those who bet on Patty, half of Marge’s twin-sister duo, as the outed character won big, and while The New York Times hastened, in its Timesean way, to say that the show poked fun at both the liberal and conservative views of gay marriage, it was clear that what the writers mostly enjoyed doing was jabbing at religious institutions, both the conservative churches who condemn same-sex love and the wishy-washy lib-denominations who condone it with a wince. (It was no co-wince-cidence that Homer, eager to make some $$$ by marrying gay couples as a mail-order minister, signed up with the Episcopal church, the one most squishy on social issues and I say that with the firm authority of a lapsed Episcopalian.)
Then (pant, pant) on to “Desperate Housewives,” where the son of Marcia Cross’ glowingly red-headed Bree was discovered to be, ah, exploring his sexuality with a boy-pal in a pool. I dunno about you, but the campy twists and turns of the oh-so-hot-hit “Housewives” have become pretty predictable to me, and I’m really getting tired of Teri Hatcher’s tensile desperation: slimmed-down to a quivering arrow now that she’s re-gained star status, her comic jitteriness is a turn-off. Were it not for Marcia Cross’ perfect Barbara-Billingsley-on-antidepressants serenity and Felicity Huffman’s nuanced portrayal of an exhuasted mom, I’d be tuning away from this show by now. Adding a potentially-gay son to the mix was, however, a smart fillip for creator Marc Cherry to add to his Sunday sundae of a show, primarily because we want to see how the brittle Bree will react.
Finally, at 10 I turned along with the rest of all sensible American premium-cable-subscribers to the season premiere of “The L Word,” only to be greeting by a godawful new opening-credit sequence with hideous music provided by the awful camp group Betty (oldsters: think Manhattan Transfer without the guys: bad harmonies; cutesy patter).
I loved the fact that the writers didn’t bother wasting time trying to reintroduce the characters and plotlines to newbies, instead plunging right into the agony and the ecstasy of El Lay lesbianism. Jennifer Beals’ Bette is never more effective than when she’s either heartbroken at home or cranky at work, and here she was both: brava! Now that I’ve abandoned the desire to have the series bear even the slightest resemblance to reality, I was amused by all the constant-coupling/groping/kissing that keeps these women on 24-hour estrogen-alert. (It IS impossible that people, male or female, have this much access and participation in non-stop sex, isn’t it? Or am I so out of touch, so less hip than even guest-starring-as-herself Arianna Huffington, that I don’t notice the instant flirting that leads to immediate make-out sessions among anyone in the service sector of the economy?
Yes, Showtime’s “The L Word” is frequently about as believable as a “Simpsons” sight-gag, but its soap operatics are more deft than “Desperate Houswives”‘, and there’s no way I’m going to stop watching, even when HBO’s “Deadwood” returns. Hey: dead wood—wouldn’t that be a good title for a Showtime series about male porn actors in jeopardy?