Category Archives: television

Netflix Heartstopper’s Cuddly Cringefest

diversity, Feminine, television,

You read it right. I’ve returned for a hot second on my long abandoned WordPress blog to write about a Netflix series I’ve been binging since last year at a time when we were all beginning to emerge from the Covid Pandemic haze. In fact, it was one of a few streaming television series that cheered me up immensely during that time.

Based on the graphic novel by Alice Oseman, which I have yet to read, Heartstopper is a Queer love story about two young boys Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring and how they navigate the discovery of their love for one another, how Nick discovers his bisexuality and the wonderful stories of their friends, family and even school teachers along the way. It is so filled with positivity, caring, kindness, love, support and evolving maturity and healthy boundary building that I just find myself filled with smiles and joy whenever I watch it. I love seeing young men embrace their vulnerability and treat one another in ways that counter what could easily descend into the usual toxic, violent masculine tropes seen in film and television. It’s not to say that these negative elements are not a part of the story. Harry, the high school homophobe, is that guy we all knew in high school whose ignorance and prejudice he wields like a blunt weapon whenever he shoots off his mouth to say something inflammatory and insulting to Charlie or his friends. But his attitude is so deftly, maturely and directly called out and dealt with by Charlie’s friend group that it creates a sense of ease and safety with being oneself or at least feeling somewhat comfortable finding oneself as in the case of Isaac, the book lover of Charlie’s friend group played by Tory Donavan who is just beginning to discover his own asexual identity. I very much relate to the way he uses reading as both a shield, an escape and as way of learning new things about himself and the world.

Nick Nelson played by Kit Connor, aka voted most likely to be a raging hetero, (he’s bisexual actually) turns out to be a total dream of a human being in ways that just melt the heart on repeat. The intimacy between Nick and Charlie is so palpable and authentic it almost feels like a character in the show. Charlie is already openly gay, (someone accidentally overheard his bestie Tao talking about it) and has experienced a terrible period of bullying and physical assault both by homophobic school peers and by his “down low” boyfriend and schoolmate Ben with whom he carried on a secret relationship in season one. His expectations of finding a love that does not include sneaking around and filling himself with self hatred are already low so when he meet’s Nick for the first time, his heart is so open, it’s almost unbearable; love at first sight, or what the kids would call cringe. I live for that type of cringe. I live for the long embraces, the short greetings of hi whenever they run into one another that contain an overflow of unutterable, inexplicably abundant affection and a desire to be close. It’s not just about sexuality or falling in love, but the courage it takes to connect through true intimacy

Pages: 1 2

Smart Television Also Knows Sex is Important

health, sex, television, ,

lapalabra_068
‘Thanks for the numbers Josh but are you getting it in at all man?”

You’re going to get sick of my “West Wing’ revelations, but watching some of the very last episodes of the last season when hot ass Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) takes office, it becomes obvious suddenly that some of our favorite characters are not having nearly enough sex. And more than that, that they should be.

Just before they call the vote count that makes Santos as the winner, he gets so stressed out that his wife tells him he should sleep. Of course he says he can’t. She takes him up their bedroom and makes sure he rests. We never see sex on West Wing really but we know when it happens because it hardly ever does. “The West Wing” is about people so maniacally dedicated to serving in the White House that they barley notice they have no life at all outside of it. It’s one of the major issues I’ve always had with the show. I need fun and sexuality in life as well as in art. But this is just a testament to how good I think “The West Wing” is. I have never watched entire seasons of any other show repeatedly that had so little demonstration of physical and emotional affection….ever.

In the last season Josh Lyman, Santos’ campaign manager and new Chief of Staff becomes so tightly wound up and stressed out that Santos asks his aid, Donna if she knows whether or not Josh is getting any at all. It’s pretty obvious that Santos has a good work, life, sex balance and you just know it will continue even after he becomes the leader of the free world. Even President Bartlett whom he will succeed has more sex than anyone else on the show.

Josh is all work all the time and though he dates and has relationships on an off, nothing ever lasts. His life is not about lasting relationships. And he is the character I love most until the last season when he stubbornly refuses to power down, take a break, let Donna love him, and let himself love. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand most people who don’t know how to be happy. It’s not a judgement but a fact. It’s hard for me to relate but I know there are many of us who find it difficult to be happy or to think of happiness as something that can last or that there are people for whom happiness is a soul purpose. I’m not going to pretend I’m an eternal optimist. But I could never live for work. I could never live without the promise of love and happiness. And I think sex is an incredibly important part of our health, emotionally, spiritually and otherwise. I think it’s wonderful when people are passionate about their work, when they love what they do for a living. I have never had the experience except for when I create so perhaps if I did I might have a different opinion. But here’s what i do know.

A kiss can save a life.

And good sex can save many lives.

Stay tuned for my next entry about being raised in a naked house like Rainbow Johnson played by Tracee Elis Ross on”Black-ish” Thank you Rainbow for validating my childhood experience. LOL!

The Real Scandal

Black relationships, black women, television, , , , , ,

JOE-USE4
Joe Morton

I don’t know that I ever understood who Olivia Pope was outside of a fixer/handler/help who wears the “White hat” quivers in the presence of power, aka Fitz and hires people to kill people but is shocked when she realizes her intimate proximity to killers. If Joe Morton, who plays her father had not joined the cast when he did, I doubt I could have continued to watch the show, particularly after they killed off Harrison and gave him that wack ass funeral. If Poppa Pope hadn’t already been around by then, I just don’t see what other reason there would have been for me to stick around. Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy the other story lines. But Olivia’s is meant to be the one we watch for and frankly it’s making me nauseous.

Look. I realize that interracial relationships happen. I’ve been in a few myself. But I look around on television and all I see is white couple TV shows and in Shondaland where Black women are the main characters of two hit shows, for some reason, they can’t be seen with a positively portrayed Black man! WTF?

My good friend at Life as I Know It and I were having our Court Street Car chat last weekend after attending a lecture at the Brooklyn Museum about unpacking the definition of the Diva. We were discussing the reasons why we felt Olivia and Annalise were not only in exclusive relationships with white men but the fact that the little bit of Black men in both shows have been portrayed as either untrustworthy, dead or monstrous. All the powerful white men in Scandal are evil, murderous and selfish but it’s clear that whoever has Olivia’s heart is the hero. And it ain’t her daddy. I can’t get into “How to Get Away with Murder” right now but that story line is starting to go downhill for me as well. She’s doing everything she can for her asshole husband while the only Black man we’ve seen her with is running around in the shadows trying to avenge himself against her.

Let’s  talk about Olivia’s father, Rowan, played expertly by veteran actor, Joe Morton. Every time he starts talking, I’m on the edge of my seat.  I need to know why, when they write for Rowan, the language he uses clearly subverts a truth about race relations that is never fully brought to light in the racial dynamics of the rest of the show.

“Those people are not your people.”

“Don’t you ever leave me for one of them.”

“Twice as good as them to get half of what they have.”

“Those boys..”

I could go on.

HE-GIVES-ME-LIFE

And I know he’s supposed to be an asshole but I need Olivia to give a shit about her family. I need her to put family before these dudes no matter how dysfunctional it is. Why is it that the obvious dysfunction, crime and perversion that is inherent in both Jake and Fitz is seen as the lesser evil for Olivia when compared with her father?  It’s hard for me to believe that she was actually going to sit across from her father at dinner and while “those people” blew his head off. I wasn’t feeling her method of betrayal at all. To pretend she actually believed what her father was telling her to lure him into a trap rather than understand that what he was saying was the God’s truth. Now I don’t know where Shonda is trying to take this, but if it doesn’t pan out or make any sense to me, I can’t continue to watch “Scandal” any longer. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to have a Black man and woman in a couple on tv who are loving and supportive of one another, but it’s starting to bug me that this is what stands in for someone’s idea of progress or a “post racial” reality. I mean I could see if we had just experienced decades of positive Black images in relationships and families and influential figures in film and television and THEN Scandal came along. MAYBE.  But that hasn’t happened.

I remember that before it was cancelled, my husband used to watch the show “Happy Endings,” a comedy with an all white cast of couples and friends except for Damon Wayons Jr. whose character was married to a white woman. I peeped just enough of it when he watched to see that the show was funny and well written but I refused to watch it. I am not familiar with this reality. What world is that they were living in? No one outside of that circle ever addressed the situation of Damon’s character being the only Black person in his social circle with any seriousness, I’m assuming because it was a comedy? I couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t accept it, because there was never any equal or opposing representation to compare it with.

What television has done effectively is to say, forget about seeing Black people together and loving one another! Lets just skip to situations where they are represented in the minority again! Let’s get over all this racism stuff! There’s not racism anymore! There’s also not one single new show on prime time television (besides “Black-Ish”) where loving, supportive couples, relationships and or families are played by BLACK PEOPLE!

Erm….but we’re so over race right? We’re all equally represented right?

In addition to myself, I know Black people who are married to, dating and in relationships with other Black people and people of color. But I have NEVER seen this reflected on television in any but the most occasional and exceptional of ways. The Cosby Show was great but can we move on?

My main concern is with the message that audiences of color are being fed. I can’t be bothered with what white people may or may not think and I can’t say that I really care. All I know is, I finally get why a lot of Black men hate both of Shonda’s shows. They can’t see themselves portrayed in them in any but a negative light. They continue to be either made to look like terrible people who are violent and manipulative in ways that do not earn them either status, power or love or they are removed altogether, as if they were never important, never needed and never remembered.