Arts & Entertainment
SPRING ARTS 2020: Something old, something new on TV
‘Little Fires Everywhere,’ ‘Feel Good,’ ‘Lazy Susan’ among debuting queer series
The spring television season will be a chance for LGBT fans to say goodbye to some old favorites and to try out some interesting new broadcast and streaming movies and shows.
After 11 successful seasons, the ABC sitcom “Modern Family” is going off the air April 8. The extended eccentric Pritchett clan included gay attorney Mitchell (played by out actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and his husband Cam (Eric Stonestreet), a flamboyant teacher and football coach. A spin-off series is reportedly in the works, but it’s not clear whether or not Cam, Mitchell and their adopted daughter will be involved.
On April 9, the ground-breaking NBC series “Will & Grace” will shutter after 11 seasons (eight in its initial run and three in revival). Although some LGBT audiences objected to what they considered stereotypical characters, the series made huge strides in the representation of gay people on the small screen.
Other shows with significant LGBT characters that are scheduled to end this spring include “Empire” on Fox (May 12), ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder” (May 14) and “Supernatural” on the CW (May 18).
The final episode of the award-winning comedy “Schitt’s Creek,” written by and starring out artist Daniel Levy, will air on Pop TV and the CBC on April 20. Netflix has not yet announced when it will air the final season of the popular show.
Netflix is also ending “GLOW” and “Dear White People” although final air dates have not yet been announced. ABC is shutting down “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” sometime this year.
Meanwhile, the spring television season is off to a horrific start with “Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street.” The documentary examines the homoerotic overtones and homophobic reception of the 1985 thriller “Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge” and features out actor Mark Patton who starred in the controversial (and campy) horror classic. The movie has dropped on several streaming platforms and may get a theatrical release.
Also underway is the darkly comic “These Thems” which explores the intersectional issues facing marginalized communities. The show features queer, trans and nonbinary actors playing queer, trans and nonbinary roles and every crew member identifies as a member of a marginalized group.
PBS will run a 50-minute documentary March 27 about nationally renowned Chef Patrick O’Connell and his empire The Inn at Little Washington in small town Virginia. “The Inn at Little Washington: a Delicious New Documentary” follows the gay-owned Inn’s “quirky cast of characters on their journey to obtaining a third Michelin star.”
Over on Dekkoo (and other platforms), “Strange Hearts” examines the unexpectedly interconnected lives of three queer characters from wildly different backgrounds. Created by Kevin James Thornton, the web series premiered March 12.
Out writer and actor Lena Waithe joins the cast of “Westworld” when it returns to HBO for season three on HBO on March 15. Set at the intersection of the near future and the imagined past, the acclaimed series is set in a Wild West theme park where human-like androids fulfill the fantasies of the human guests.
On March 16, the six-episode mini-series “The Plot Against America” premieres on HBO. Based on the novel by Philip Roth and starring John Turturro, Zoe Kazan and Winona Ryder, the show depicts an alternative history where xenophobic populist Chares Lindbergh defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and turns the United States towards fascism.
Freeform’s “Motherland: Fort Salem” also explores an alternative version of American history. Set in a present-day America where gender roles are flipped and witches ended their persecution by forming an elite fighting squad to protect the country, the 10-episode dramatic series follows three female recruits through basic training and deployment against a terrorist threat. Lesbian relationships are featured prominently.
Based on the best-selling novel by Celeste Ng, Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” (March 18) follows the intertwined lives of Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) and the enigmatic Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) who reveals dark family secrets.
Mae Martin is the creator and star of Netflix’s “Feel Good” (March 19). In this semi-autobiographical six-part series, Mae plays a stand-up comic and recovering addict gingerly entering into a new relationship with George (Charlotte Ritchie). The show is a touching and funny portrait of two young women navigating the modern-day landscape of love, addiction and sexuality while and trying to form a meaningful and lasting connection.
Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer stars in Netflix’s “Self Made,” a four-episode biographical mini-series inspired by the life of the famous African-American entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker.Directed by Kasi Lemons (“Harriet”) and DeMarie Davis, the supporting cast includes Blair Underwood, Tiffany Haddish, Carmen Ejogo and Garrett Morris (March 20).
Two movies featuring LGBT talent are slated to start streaming on April 3. Written by and starring Sean Hayes (“Will & Grace”), “Lazy Susan” is about a spectacularly unmotivated women for whom doing nothing is absolutely exhausting. “Almost Love,” a popular offering from the queer festival circuit, is an ensemble comedy about romance in the smartphone era. Both movies may also get theatrical releases.
On the lighter side, HBO’s “We’re Here” is a six-part unscripted series that brings drag shows to small-town America. In each episode, renowned drag queens Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara and Shangela Laquifa Wadley recruit small-town residents across America to participate in a one-night-only drag show. The famous performers will inspire and teach their own “drag daughters” to step outside their comfort zone for a night of no-holds-barred, full-on drag.
Also inspired by true events, the HBO movie “Bad Education” stars Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney as Long Island high school administrators who get caught up in an embezzlement scandal (April 25).
Out director Alice Wu helms “The Half of It” which premieres on Netflix May 1. In this intriguing gender-bending take on the well-known Cyrano story, a smart and introverted Chinese-American teen girl is befriended by a sweet but dimwitted football player in the hopes she will help him woo the most popular girl in school. The teen girl reluctantly agrees, but soon realizes she may have her own romantic feelings for the popular girl.
Also dropping on Netflix on May 1 is the latest series from gay media mogul Ryan Murphy. “Hollywood” exposes the divisions of race, gender and sexuality behind the camera during the Golden Age of Tinseltown. The cast includes out actors Holland Taylor, Jim Parsons and Joe Mantello as well as Mia Farrow, Dylan McDermott, Darren Criss and Patti LuPone.
Finally, HBO closes out its spring programming with a variety of shows that may be of interest to LGBT audiences.
Based on Crystal Moselle’s critically acclaimed feature “Skate Kitchen,” the six-episode half-hour series “Betty” debuts on May 1. The series follows a diverse group of young women navigating their lives through the predominantly male-oriented world of skateboarding, set against the backdrop of New York City. The group includes Kirt (Nina Moran) who is described as a lover (to the ladies) and a fighter (to the rest of the world).
The documentary “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” premieres on May 5. The limited series “The Third Day” stars Jude Law and Naomie Harris as visitors to a mysterious island off the British coast. Finally, written by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier, “The Undoing” stars Nicole Kidman as a successful New York therapist whose life begins to unravel.
And coming down the pike in early June — “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars” season five starts June 5 exclusively on Showtime. Go figure.
And a sad note for daytime — Will and Sonny, the gay “Days of Our Lives” supercouple, are being written off the show. Their last shows will air in early September. Contacts for actors Fredde Smith and Chandler Masset were not renewed for the serial’s 56th season.
Movies
Ethereal ‘Camp’ a moody allegory for queer shame
An unsentimental yet empathetic exploration of guilt
When one watches movies for a living, it’s as easy to fall into routine as it is with any job. Each movie is different, of course, each with its own characters, its own viewpoint, and its own story – (or at least its own variation on one), but in so many other ways, they have a tendency to be very much the same.
This is because there is an entire “language” of filmmaking, established from the earliest days of cinematic storytelling, a process so subtle that most of us are barely aware of it: the image directs our attention, the script provides the shape and structure of the story, and the actors are our stand-ins, allowing us to “experience” the reality of the film through a transference of identity that occurs so reflexively that we don’t even notice it’s happened.
That’s why it can be such a jolt when we come across a movie that doesn’t follow the expected rules, and we can’t think of a better recent example than Avalon Fast’s “Camp,” which drew attention as it made the rounds at last year’s festival circuit and embarked on a series of screenings in select cities beginning on June 26.
Fast, 26, is a queer Canadian filmmaker who specializes in “Girl Horror” (a genre that centers female experience), and who has already become a prominent force in the “new queer indie” movement. Her first feature, “Honeycomb,” got a Sundance “virtual” screening, and she’s appeared as a performer in films like Alice Maio Mackay’s “The Serpent’s Skin” and leading trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s yet-to-be-released Cannes hit, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” With “Camp,” however, she stakes her claim to territory in a burgeoning field of queer/trans/feminist cinema to establish herself as a formidable “brand” of her own.
Rooted in a blend of trope-ish horror conventions and presented in a dreamy, ethereal style that elevates feeling over cognition, it’s the story of Emily (Zola Grimmer), a young woman accidentally responsible for two horrific tragedies, who feels hopelessly trapped by guilt and shame. At the suggestion of her father (Mike Tan), she takes a summer job as a counselor at a camp for “troubled” young people like herself, where she is quickly embraced and assimilated by the core group of female counselors – most of them “hot weirdos” who are more interested in all-night partying and a kind of home-grown witchcraft than they are in the wholesome camp activities they supervise during the day. Her initial response to this new environment is guarded, but as the summer goes on she comes to feel a strong connection to her fellow counselors, beginning to hope that she has – at last – found her place among a “family” that accepts her despite the life-shattering incidents that have come to define her sense of self. Yet at the same time, she becomes ever more aware of a call to confront and quiet the ghosts of her misfortunate past – even if it requires an unthinkable sacrifice.
Dreamy and purposefully opaque when it comes to differentiating between real experience and metaphysical reflection, Fast’s movie draws us in from the start with its edgy mix of visual atmosphere, blending an aesthetic that combines home-movie nostalgia with the ironically whimsical flourishes of the digital age to establish a tone that feels like a half-forgotten memory reconstructed in the form of an Instagram “reel.” It’s a potent effect, creating an overall aesthetic of surreal impressionism in which the plot advances more through mood and fragments of subjective experience than through concrete narrative form; at times, it feels untethered, yes, but it always manages to orchestrate its seemingly disjointed perspective into a shape that makes sense — even if we’re not quite sure how or why, or even what is actually happening.
The effect is cumulative, as the story becomes less bound to logic and realism while leaning further into a perspective that favors the arcane and mysterious over the rational and concrete. And while that might prove frustrating for viewers expecting a more traditional kind of “horror,” it provides for an experience that’s more likely to satisfy the kind of fans who appreciate being left to provide their own interpretations. The most obvious comparison would be with the work of David Lynch; there’s clearly an influence there for Fast’s darkly intuitive approach, which goes beyond the obvious parallels of its “Twin Peaks”-ish setting (the forest is most definitely a character here) to emulate the stream-of-consciousness narrative flow that marked much of Lynch’s late-career work.
“Camp” is far from imitative, however. While it may share some traits with the work of Lynch and other masters of contemporary surreal horror, it creates a unique “vibe” by allowing its own creative feminine energy to take the lead. The traumas it depicts spring from a definitively female space, from first-menstruation nightmares to the absurdities of having to defer to the “leadership” of a mediocre male who has more power than you (in this case, Austyn Van de Kamp as the camp’s supervisor, a naive but endearing yokel whose Jesus-centric worldview is undermined by the “coven” under his tentative command), and the overall treatment of its few male characters is largely less than forgiving. Yet on a deeper level, its subtext of carrying “unforgivable sin” that affects every aspect of one’s interactive life feels ultimately as much an expression of queer trauma as it does feminist ideology. The result is just cryptic enough to leave us pondering what we’ve just seen yet clear enough to deliver a sense of emotional catharsis which feels, if not exactly curative, at least healing enough to pave a way forward.
Admittedly, it’s not a film that will likely tick off all the boxes for hardcore horror fans; while it might deal in dark emotions and a certain witchiness that ties it to the legacy of such pagan-flavored classics as “The Wicker Man” or “Midsommar,” its terrors are more existential than visceral, pondering the difficulties of overcoming self-hatred rather than pitting us against a palpable physical threat, supernatural or otherwise. Indeed, it’s more introspective psychodrama than it is traditional horror – which is less a criticism than it is a disclaimer.
Though it’s Fast’s moody aesthetic that emerges as the “star” attraction of “Camp,” much of its effectiveness hinges on the performances of its cast. Grimmer, especially, is central, and she succeeds admirably not only in winning our empathy but in peeling back the morally murky layers of Emily’s path to redemption in a way that feels like empowerment rather than ethical compromise. However, the ensemble of “soul sisters” that surrounds her (Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Ella Reece, Lea Rose Sebastianis, and Sophie Bawks-Smith) all play their own particular part in creating the “magic” that makes the whole thing work.
All in all, “Camp” is an exhilaratingly fresh – if sometimes opaque – expression of queer filmmaking from a feminine perspective; that’s a regrettably rare occurrence which makes Fast’s fastidiously unsentimental (yet deeply empathetic) exploration of queer guilt all the more powerful, and makes her movie an essential addition to your watchlist.
The 13th annual Frederick Pride Festival was held at Carroll Creek Park in Frederick, Md. on Saturday, June 27.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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PHOTOS: Fredericksburg Pride March and Festival
LGBTQ celebration held in historic Virginia town
The sixth annual Fredericksburg Pride March was held in downtown Fredericksburg, Va. on Saturday, June 27. Stafford County Board of Supervisors Chair Deuntay Diggs led the march alongside Fredericksburg City Council Member Jannan W. Holmes. The Fredericksburg Pride Festival took place at Riverfront Park after the march. Bree Fram was the featured speaker.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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