It's a Pride Party! with "D.E.B.S."

by Nick Taylor

If you’re looking for a fun, unbelievably cute watch this Pride, you couldn’t do better than Angela Robinson’s D.E.B.S., a 2004 comedy with a clear mission statement: What if Charlie’s Angels was lesbians, with the ass-kicking superspy and her archnemesis falling head over heels for each other? An expansion of her own short film, (which you can and should watch for free on Vimeo right here!) Robinson delivers a parody built on real affection for the material it’s inverting. The knowingly cheesy visual effects carbon date this hard in the early ‘00s, yet the premise is a timeless staple of slash fiction the world over...

The setup, relayed in a narrated montage like a TV show’s opening credits, establishes its insane premise with the lurid simplicity of your classic government psy-op. Hidden within the S.A.T. is a secret, second test evaluating a student’s potential to become world-class killer superspies. Female students are enrolled in the D.E.B.S. (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength), a paramilitary education center designed to resemble a boarding school. And in many ways this facility really captures the vibes of American higher education. There’s the uniforms, the off-campus housing, the thesis studies on criminal masterminds, accidentally losing your gun in your laundry.

Our heroes are ambitious leader Max Brewer (Meagan Goode), top recruit Amy Bradshaw (Sara Foster), terminally French chainsmoker Dominique (Devon Aoki), and ditzy but well-meaning Janet (Jill Ritchie, the only holdover actor from Robinson’s original short). They report directly to Mr. Phipps (Michael Clarke Duncan), who gives them their most challenging assignment yet: spy on criminal mastermind Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster), renowned for her high-profile thefts, attempting to destroy Australia, and for killing every agent who’s ever gone against her. It’s a daunting task. Amy’s been studying Lucy for her senior thesis on gender and criminal masterminds, which she and her superiors hope will give her an edge on her newest target. The D.E.B.S. first mission is to observe Lucy at her rendezvous with the Russian assassin Ninotchka Karpova (Jessica Cauffiel) at a villain-exclusive restaurant, surely for some clandestine scheming.

Actually, it’s a date! D.E.B.S. barely pretends otherwise before we cut to Lucy’s secret villainous lair, where she confesses how nervous she is to get back in the dating scene to her lieutenant and ally extraordinarie Scud (Jimmi Simpson). Cue the meet-cute several scenes later, following a gigantic gunfight and an even more unpleasant date, where Amy and Lucy literally crash into each other in a warehouse. Their guns are out, but they’re immediately caught by each other. Lucy knows what this intrigue is, but Amy doesn’t, and the jumble of danger, battle-preparedness, and academic fascination towards this beautiful woman is overwhelming to our heretofore straight super spy. But curiosity (and some light kidnapping) are powerful forces, and by the end of the night Amy knows there’s a real attraction between her and Lucy.

      

D.E.B.S. isn’t as formally or stylistically audacious as The People’s Joker, but there’s a similar goal to their queer inversions of pop media. Their parody is emboldened not by snarky derision but a pretty sincere attempt at adding gay dimension to their chosen genre, enabled by some cheeky weaponization of their budgets. Amy’s sexual coming of age, and the way understanding this one part of herself consequently impacts other aspects of her life, is taken seriously. Can the best spy in the world keep pretending she’s straight? Can Amy give up the woman she loves for a career she maybe doesn’t want, over something as silly as wanting to destroy Australia? A late conversation with Mr. Phipps lays out the film’s mission statement and Amy’s quandary in moving simplicity. It’s refreshing to see her sisters in crime fighting question what on earth is wrong with Amy - not because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s in lesbians with a criminal mastermind.

Robinson’s budget and production values make this more audiovisually in conversation with TV soaps, and she mines the tropes and limitations built into this for all they’re worth. She’s pretty snazzy at imbuing the espionage and combat scenes for laugh out loud comedy and YA-levels of danger. I love an early reveal where our D.E.B.S., hanging from the ceiling to spy on Lucy and Ninotchka, look around to see dozens of agents covering the whole upper level of the restaurant. It’s a great gag, and the initial pan up from their perch to the spies spying right about their heads makes the joke funnier. The quality of the VFX carbon dates this hard as a mid-’00s project, but I think this works in Robinson’s favor. You could easily imagine finding this on ABC Family or Disney XD back in the day, making the open-faced queerness, heavy makeouts, and hard swearing even more surprising than they already are. It’s accessible to all audiences, yet seeing it fit so nice and snug on the Criterion Channel is as pleasant and validating as you’d expect.

Robinson is similarly smart her actors, gauging a smart balance of broad comedy and necessary interiority among her principle players. Even the ostensibly one-note roles are carried off with real wit, especially Devon Aoki’s disaffected Dominique. Sara Foster and Jordana Brewster play every beat of their relationship (and their separate moral crises) with bouncy, frisky, authentically moving enthusiasm. They don’t get to be as funny as their co-stars, but they give D.E.B.S. the spine it needs to be as sweet as it is silly. Still, my MVP might be Jimmi Simpson’s high-strung but deeply supportive lieutenant, who clearly belongs with Nathan Faustyn in the hall of queer cinema’s best allies. He cares so much, and his own romance subplot is a sweet, gratifying swerve. So many reasons to recommend D.E.B.S., so many reasons to watch it on this or any month.

D.E.B.S. is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel as part of their "Queersighted: Coming of Age" playlist. It is free on The Roku Channel and available to buy or rent on most major streaming platforms.