HBO’s LGBT History: All Aboard! (2006)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at a couple of mid-2000s HBO comedies to discuss various gay stereotypes in Da Ali G Show, The Comeback and Entourage, a mere week after discussing complex characters in HBO dramas. Today we look at quite possibly the most surprising entry in this history: All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise. Yes, this is a documentary about the maiden voyage of Rosie O’Donnell’s all-inclusive (pun-alert!) LGBT family cruise. I dreaded watching this. I mean, that promotional image alone was enough to make me queasy and that was before I even pressed play.

Well, color me surprised. Not only is All Aboard! a pretty decent documentary but it is a fascinating document of LGBT life and politics in the early twenty-first century.

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HBO’s LGBT History: Da Ali G Show, Entourage & The Comeback

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at The Sopranos, The Wire and Carnivàle. I commended each of those series for putting LGBT characters front and center and, more importantly, for not treating their sexuality as their only character dimension. But what of HBO’s comedies? If these dramas were doing the heavy lifting, what can we glean from looking at their comedic contemporaries?

Well, let’s just say that, in 2015 journalistic parlance, HBO had some “problematic” characters on display.

A limp wrist. A lilting high-pitched voice. A jutting hip. A flair for style. We all know these characteristics of the stereotypical gay male of the late twentieth century; it’s as reviled as it is ubiquitous. But it also demands close scrutiny; why should we refuse to give voice to these flamboyant members of the LGBT community? And yet, why should all mainstream America be solely exposed to them as if they were the entire community? This week we’ll try and address these questions while talking about “gay minstrelsy” as we discuss Da Ali G Show, TFE fave, The Comeback and Entourage after the jump...

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What Is It With Ruth Madoff and Actresses?

You've already heard that Michelle Pfeiffer is finally planning to work again for an HBO movie called Wizard of Lies. So let's give the story its proper due.

Pfeiffer in The Family / Ruth Madoff

(I included the Pfeiff News in the last link roundup but the Pfans among you didn't deem that sufficient. (I heard from a pflummoxed pfew by e-mail). Look, stop demanding my bonafides! I have been devoted to La Pfeiff since 1985 in. real. time. I've followed her long enough to take each new probject with a full brick of salt until I see footage. She is so skittish about working.)

For the moment at least she is planning to play Ruth Madoff in Wizard of Lies with Robert De Niro in the leading role of fraudulent financier Bernie Madoff. Aside from cameos and voice work this will be her first TV role since just before superstardom hit in 87/88. In her last film The Family, DeNiro (who is 72) and she had teenage children but they're aging up this time around and delicious/undervalued Alessandro Nivola (who is 43) will play their son. Frankly I'd rather see Alessandro romantically paired with Pfeiffer than playing her biological! She's closer to his age than De Niros (by one year - hee - as she's 14 years older than Nivola and 15 years younger than De Niro - but it counts! Especially since she's so foxy. And especially because Nivola is even hotter (it sounds impossible but it's totally true) when paired with actresses that are older than he is - think Frances McDormand in Laurel Canyon, Embeth Davidtz in Junebug and Emily Mortimer in real life (his wife is just one year older - but for this argument it counts ;) 

But back to the Madoffs.

It's worth noting here that Ruth Madoff has already been played by Cate Blanchett (kinda) in Blue Jasmine, and BEFORE Pfeiffer she'll be played by Blythe Danner in the ABC miniseries Madoff (currently filming) so the disgraced rich lady is really getting around among the actresses. It is kind of an instant classic dream role in the Women Who Lie To Themselves™ subgenre.

Blythe Danner and Richard Dreyfuss in Madoff, coming to ABC in 2016.

If Pfeiffer actually goes through with it, we can hope for an Emmy but won't hold our breath. Despite her fame and acclaim, she has never been an awards magnet only picking up an odd trophy here and there (the BAFTA for Dangerous Liaisons, the Silver Bear for Love Field, and several coveted prizes for Fabulous Baker Boys including the Globe, the NBR, and the holy trinity of critics prizes -- NYFCC, LAFCA, NSFC -- before losing the Oscar for that role. ARGH x ∞).

But after both Blue Jasmine (2013) and ABC's Madoff (2016) will audiences and showbiz voters still be into this story for a third round in late 2016 or 2017? 

HBO’s LGBT History: The Wire, Carnivàle & The Sopranos

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we talked about the towering achievement that was Angels in America, and reading everyone’s pieces about the Mike Nichols/Tony Kushner miniseries for last week’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot was a treat. Angels was the clearest example yet of HBO’s commitment complex, fully fleshed-out (mostly male, yes) LGBT characters. It wasn’t, of course, as we have seen these past few months, out of character. Indeed, by looking at three testosterone-driven TV series we’ll see how by the mid-2000s HBO had all but become a one-stop shop for fully-realized LGBT characters.

Continuing what we did when we revisited Six Feet Under, I figured we’d focus on one episode per series, both as a way to focus the discussion but also as a way of making it accessible to fellow newbies. That said, I’m eager to hear from die-hard fans of any of these shows.

The Wire - “Old Cases” (June 23, 2002)

It was through compiling this very very long list of 100 Queer Characters of Color in TV and Film, that I came to learn of Omar Little and detective Shakima Greggs. Yes, I know, I know, The Wire is supposed to be brilliant but I’ve yet to sit down through its 60 episode run. Much in the same vein as Oz, The Sopranos and other early HBO dramas, The Wire takes it upon itself to not only present engaging narratives to hook viewers, but it does so while also speaking of the larger socio-economic ills that afflict contemporary America. Centered on the drug scene in Baltimore through the eyes of law enforcement and drug dealers, the show constantly asks us to question the larger systemic issues that riddle Baltimore’s projects.

more on all three shows after the jump...

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HMWYBS: Angels in America (2003)

What follows is a republishing of a piece I'm proud of from our very first season of Hit Me With Your Best Shot (you can see the index of all six seasons here) when I was somehow far more concise with "Best Shot" despite feeling like I was overdoing it. I've added in notes and links for contributions from other Best Shot participants and I'd like to thank Manuel heartily before we begin for his fascinating contextual work on HBO's long history of LGBT films and series this summer and for sharing this week's HBO LGBT episode with us for our redo episode of this Great Work. Read that piece before you read this. Ready? Let's begin...

Tony Kushner's extraordinary two part stage epic Angels in America centers around two overlapping young couples in the mid 80s, struggling married Mormons, pill popping Harper and her closeted husband Joe and the gay couple Louis and Prior they become connected spiritually (Harper befriends Prior... in her dreams) and physically (Joe becomes Louis's other lover). But it's also about politics, immigration, religion, identity, and evolution and encompasses multiple other characters from Louis's outspoken gay friend Belize, to Joe's mother, to the evil lawyer Roy Cohn, the dead Communist Ethel Rosenberg, and a frequently orgasmic Angel who descends on many of the players. This masterpiece was adapted for the screen in 2003 by Oscar winner Mike Nichols. Along its journey it won 7 Tonys, The Pulitzer, and later 5 Golden Globes and 11 Emmys and here's the thing: it deserved every single prize. If you haven't seen it drop everything (seriously everything) because it is unmissable. I've seen it performed on stage three times in three different states with wildly different budgets and casts and seen the miniseries a few times too... and every single time it's a fascinating prismatic living thing, like it will always be teaching you, entertaining you, and provoking you.

Rather than limit myself to one shot I'm picking one from each of its chapter. This I can manage!

Chapter 1 "Bad News"

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