Looking at LOOKING

A new ‘gay’ dramedy for the decade

AOG, Madrid

Television serves many purposes aside from just entertainment. It informs and instructs, as best it can.

I am sure that social anthropology draws a direct correlation between society and the impact certain programs, or in fact, all programs, have on the changing of attitudes of said society.

We all know how the 1970s saw an explosion of programs where black people were suddenly the protagonists and not merely bystanders. 

Whether a reflection of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, or just an effort to cash in on a growing trend, the fact is that these shows did their fair share in normalizing, or helping to normalize, race relations in America.

‘Good Times’ was certainly one of my favorites as a kid in the 1980s. But I also enjoyed ‘The Jeffersons’.

Of course, at the time, I saw them as merely entertaining television. I was too young to think about watching a ‘black’ sitcom, or a ‘black’ anything. I was just watching TV.

I enjoyed The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, and The Cosby Show.

And there will always be a soft spot in my heart for ‘Gimme a Break’ and Nell Carter.

But there is one too for my all-time favorite childhood show: The Carol Burnett Show.

In my mind, then and now, these were just television shows which made me laugh. I was not interested in categorizing them in any particular way. 

They weren’t white, or black, or gay, or anything other than just television.

Pioneer

The cast of ‘Brothers’

And although television has dabbled with gay shows before, in fact as late back as the 1980s with Showtime’s Brothers -which was the first time I saw a gay sitcom-, it still has floundered here and there with a successful formula or with the public’s acceptance of it.

Granted, Queer as Folk was a good show (although never as good as the British original), as were the L-Word and the magnificent Will & Grace but, of course, there’s always room for improvement.

There’s always other aspects which can be looked at.

There’s always something new to add.

Looking

 
So it was with some interest, and trepidation, that I started to watch ‘Looking’ about a month ago.

I taped the whole series (all 8 episodes) and, slowly, started watching it.

It follows the lives of three gay men, Patrick, Agustín, and Dom in and around the city of San Francisco.

From the first episode I was a bit underwhelmed.

I found it hard to believe that an adult gay male, Patrick, would be so inept at cruising.

I suppose the scriptwriter thought it was hilarious, but I admit that I was not much amused.

And the rest of the episode sort of read as kind of a Tales of the City cum Sex and the City, minus the clever parts… off steroids.

And I had, or have, other issues with it too.

I have to say that two weeks went by before I bothered to watch the second episode. My heart was not on it. Yet I also didn’t erase the show.

I just had to find the right moment.

Eventually I did.

Did the show improve?

Well, yes. Here and there. Sort of. In places.

But there were, are, things which just simply make me go hmm…

Like, for example, Richie, a character who is very Catholic, and gay, and has no issue with the clash between his sexuality and his faith (if he is enlightened about it, like most gay cathols I know, it is not coming through in the show).

Not just that, he sort of likes a guy and wants him to wear an ‘escapulario’, a scapular, right away.

Is that what he asks of all his boyfriends?

Yes, I found that weird.

Also, the whole issue with Richie being uncircumcised.

What is the big deal? As far as I know, being ‘au naturelle’ in the US is seen as quite desirable in the gay world. But not this guy? Not Patrick?

And with Agustín being a non-productive artist. Or a self-defeating artist. And mostly a bit of an asshole…and yet you like him. Then you don’t.

Or with Dom liking only younger men, but somehow magically falling for Scott Bakula as Lynn.

Believable yes, but no the way it is shown on Looking.

Also, lesbians, in that great gay city, are mostly not around in this show. Yes, I get it, it is about gay men. But it just seems odd.

And…sorry but is San Francisco populated by just hispanics and whites? No black people? Nobody from Asia? Hello?

And one final also: Doris. I feel for the poor actress who plays her, Lauren Weedman. Doormat does not even begin to cover it.

Why does this character exist? All she seems to do is cater and kow tow to Dom’s every whim.

Why?

Is she his ex?

Is she secretly in love with him?

Is she just slow?

She certainly seems to be a walking car crash of a female character.

Unloved, unlikeable, and bordering on annoying.

For a fag hag, she is certainly not doing well for herself.

Finally, and call me crazy, is it too much to ask that the city’s multifaceted gay community be semi represented?

And what about the issues facing LGBT people today? 

What about gay marriage? Social discrimination? Bullying? HIV?

Scott Bakula, as Lynn

None of these have been talked about yet.

Now, the positive side.

However, I must say, that for all my complaints, for all the show’s shortcomings, I liked it. Or at least, I like that it exists.

For one thing, it is very nice to look at.

The cinematography is beautiful here and there. And I like that they show you parts of the countryside around San Francisco which you don’t often see on TV or in films.

The music is well chosen. Or if not, at least I like it.

And the plot lines, though apparently absent at times, or just plain convoluted others, do seem to reflect the daily lives of the characters (all but Doris, of course).

I also like that the characters come across as regular people. Not the über-rich A-Gay of other shows; not the to-die-for looks of stereotypical gay characters; no VIP, glamorous lives which seem far removed from the reality of many gay men's lives.

These three come across as regular guys with regular problems.

How to deal with an open relationship, and yourself. How to deal with yourself and a boyfriend-love interest of a different background from yours and a British boss who has the hots for you. How to deal with being a waiter at 40, trying to make it in the world, not kill your ex, and falling for an older guy, and yourself.

At the end of the first season it seems like all three of them have gone full circle. Yet they are still “looking”. For love? 

For solace? For answers.

Dom is going for Lynn, Agustín is out of his boyfriend’s home, and life, and living with Patrick, as he was in the beginning, and Patrick, who started the series failing Cruising 101, has graduated to cheating boyfriend, and maybe even power bottom.

Although this may not be the greatest gay show ever, I would venture that it has potential.

And even if the show tanked, even if there is a lot of room for improvement, as I always say, some visibility is better than NO visibility.

Remember, Queer as Folk ended in 2005 and Will & Grace in 2006. We are in 2014, and Modern Family can only do so much.

 

Oprah

AOG, Madrid

Oprah! Oprah! Oprah...

I first heard this name in the mid 1980s. I was living in Texas then. I remember watching her show with utter fascination as a kid. I liked her voice, her demeanor, her manner.

I left the US to go and live in the UK, and, within a few years, she was there too, albeit with less success than in the US. Perhaps the American tendency to be touchy-feely about things, the great need to bring psychology to fix and explain all problems, proved too much for the British public.

I remember too how other programs made it big in the UK in the 1990s. There was, first of all, The Jerry Springer Show. Oh I we laughed, and cringed with shame and pain, at the sight of America’s Whitest and Trashiest on television.

On-screen violence, it was discovered, was a great crowd puller. To say nothing of all the insults which got bleeped out show after show.

It was repetitive in that the same sort of problems showed up. People who slept with relatives, men who slept with men whom they thought were women, long lost relatives fighting over who knows what. In short, people who went on television to sort out a problem the old fashioned way: with violence and insults. Touchy feely only in that you got hit and you felt it.

Then there was Jenny Jones. Interesting, and a couple of steps up on the social scale. But she was always so frail. Nonetheless, watchable enough. Being frail and open is not a negative.

And Ricky Lake. Gay friendly, fat friendly, girl friendly, mother friendly, tv friendly.

But I think we all liked her better on the silver screen.

We do owe her one key 1990s idea: the makeover!

On her show you could bring your old tattered mother who looked like a tired, run over, 1950s Vegas stripper, give her over to Ricky Lake’s staff, and return home with a cleaner, more updated version of the poor woman. Or your boyfriend. Or your Gothic daughter. Or your slimy boyfriend. Or his boyfriend!

Finally, there was the Oh-how-very-sanctimonious-holier-than-thou Sally Jesse Raphael.

Sally Jesse was like that bitch of a teacher you had in Elementary School who was always right. Always had the last word. Always tried for you to improve yourself. And when you didn’t, she came down on you like a ton of bricks.

Was she watchable? Was she ever. Like a car crash!

I mean, how could you not watch, perplexed, someone who defied the aging process? And in designer gear!

However, all along the line, Oprah remained a cut above the rest somehow.

Her show, which was always on again, off again in the UK, was always aimed at people who were aspirational.

It didn’t matter what your background was when you were on Oprah because being on Oprah meant that, by default, you were elevated from your social status immediately. To hers. A bit like Colonel Pickering, who would talk to a flower girl as though she were a lady.

You too were then a celebrity. Oprah always brings you up to her level. And unknowingly so. That of a rich celebrity. A well-to-do, upper middle America, normal person.

Because Oprah is nothing if she's not normal. Her reactions, her feelings, her ups and downs, are all normal. She is not what I'd call pretentious in the slightest.

Perhaps it was this elevation which made people tune in. Oprah is not for intellectuals, it is for people who aspire to know and understand what intellectuals were about. At least at first.

She even has a book club which recommends which books, and thoughts and ideas, your new-found social group cares for.

On Oprah I saw how racist people tried to make sense of their ideas by saying things like, “I don’t like blacks, but I like you. You are not like them”.

Is this not amazing? I think she did more for what is know in America as “race-relations” than any piece of legislation or Governmental goodwill.

I always liked her. So did my family. We all still do.

But because I live in Spain, I can’t watch her show any longer.

And I miss it.

I will miss it even more after 2011 because the queen of all talk shows started to say goodbye today.

On that year, 2011, she will tape her last show and concentrate on her new channel.

I am amazed at how long she has been a part of my life- over 20 years!

I have suffered with her when her weight you-yoed. I was with her, side by side, when she championed civil rights, when she had KKK members on her show, when she tried to help people.

I think this is probably what I will miss most, her ability to help people. I have seen so many shows where she helped others.

Most of all, she helps you to be yourself, whomever you might be. And that is great. I have to say, 2011 will be the end of an era. It will represent the end of a show, but much more. It will be a milestone of sorts.

Suddenly, we will all realize how far away we've come by her side. And how far we'll go without her.

Thank you Oprah. For being Oprah.

Globalization meltdown in my living room

AOG, Madrid

I’m all for globalization, and sometimes the extent to which our World, certainly my life, are globalised, amazes me.

Today I was at home watching some television in my newly installed satellite dish. I live in a XIX century building in an XVIII century neighbourhood in Madrid, a city turned into a capital in the XVI century, of a country striding all centuries between the 500 AD and now. Hard to believe? come on over and see for yourself!

But back to today's lesson...

The furniture at home is Swedish (Ikea), my television, DVD player and mobile phone are from South Korea (Samsung). My laptop was assembled in China and it is a Toshiba- Japanese.

The clothes I wear are mostly European and American labels, sawn in Southeast Asia.

The cologne I wear is mostly French.

Bed linen is British (Laura Ashley, Habitat), Swedish (Ikea), or American (Ralph Lauren). I use an iPod, designed by an American company (Apple) and assembled in Taiwan.

My digital camera is a Canon; American, though it is probably assembled in Asia somewhere.

My life has always been like this, cosmopolitan even when I was not aware of it. Labels and international companies have always accompanied me and my friends.

But today I experienced a complete meltdown.

There I was, at home, sipping a latte from Starbucks (Seattle- though the beans were probably African, or Brazilian- the milk? local Spanish cow from the North fare) watching television through a US-designed system pegged unto a European satellite named ASTRA.

I was quite savvy with some of the television channels- Cubavision, Al Jazeera in English, France24 in both French and English, television from Ecuador, Colombia, the UK, Argentina, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal, even Korean and Russian television... in English, (don't ask, I don't know).

I could cope with all this, in fact, I loved it. But then it happened.

I flipped the channel and, suddenly, I was watching a Mexican soap opera dubbed into Arabic on a Moroccan television station through a European satellite using American technology unto my XIX century building and my XXI century life.

I spat out in laughter my Kenyan-Seattle coffee brew all over Ikea's imitation English Floral (itself an imitation of Chinese XIX century florals) and all over my Bolivian red carpet.

My brain exploded. It was too much. Even as I write this I laugh. I’m still giddy.

I can’t help but wonder what might come next?

Chinese opera dubbed into Swahili with Arabic subtitles courtesy of Tanzanian television?

Ugly Betty

AOG, Madrid

Television in Spain is quite bad. There are reasons why this is, but I won't go into them right now. Lets just say that 'the cheaper the better' goes a long way here. Why invest in quality programming when they'll buy whatever you make on the cheap?

Local programming extends mostly to what is known as "prensa del corazón" (literally, press of the heart - meaning A, B, C, D and E- list celebrities, their lives and loves and those of their maids, cooks, body guards &c.) or "prensa rosa" (pink press, and no, no gay connotations), and some Spanish-produced sitcoms and tv series of various degrees of quality.

Oh, yes, and game-shows which tend to give out good prices and usually loads of money.

Cultural programs in Spain, something everyone I know wishes there were more of- are ubiquitous because of their almost complete absence, though , of course, there are exceptions. Children's programs are also quite good though Saturday mornings are not wall-to-wall cartoons and zany contests.

Serious news programs à la 20/20 or similar, however, are top-notch. A very good example of this is Informe Semanal. Very very good. But not very many of them as a whole.

I find it odd that this country can produce such good informative shows and at the same time it feeds its housewives (for they are the main audience for the 'press of the heart') absolute drivel.

When I moved to Madrid, I installed a Digital Television decoder. Here too Spanish television often lets me down.

Some channels show Mexican and Latin American programming (mostly soaps) and others show sport. I also watch Sony television, which emits in dual-band.

This means I can switch (something I never do) between English and dubbed-into-Spanish dialogue. It shows old sitcoms like 'Mad about you', 'Will and Grace' and things like 'Providence', which I don't watch.

Unfortunately most of these channels are very dependent on the most God-awful info-mertial and 'quick-buck' endless shows. The kind where you play hangman and people call in continuously until all possible options are exhausted. Call and win! they say. I don't know if people win, I never tune in for that long.

This means two things, one, I buy a lot of DVDs: comedy shows, series and movies, mostly US and British stuff. And two, whenever Spanish television shows an American show, I am glued to the screen. Just like in back in the UK, another country with bad television- though to their credit, not as bad.

Yes, great comedy, yes. The British do great comedy. But guess what? they also produce a lot of bad and uninspiring stuff. And I remember watching mostly Channel 4 there because it showed mostly US-made programs.

But back to Spain.
Since last year I've been hooked on Medium, Nip/Tuck and Desperate Housewives. I have not been able to get into House (mostly because it is only broadcast dubbed into Spanish), Queer as Folk US version (ditto on the reasons why not), or Lost, wich I find exasperating. Sorry fans.

The newest addition? Ugly Betty.

Watch this clip if interested-



It is a sort of toned down Ab Fab meets You can't do that on television. Too much fantasy stuff goes on to compare it to the Colombian original (though much better than Spain's version of that soap). It is glamorous, and also innocent.

However, although it portrays very obviously gay characters homosexuality seems to be taboo. In a fash-mag. Can you believe it?

It also stars, unfortunately, this Australian actor who starred in the ozzy soap Neighbours for ages. as Mr. Mead, owner of the magazine.

He only has one emotion, and one look. He does have, however, a deep voice and provided he does not speak for long, or not at all, can be believable as a multimillionaire magazine owner who's just lost his lover (...or has he?).

It also stars Vanessa Williams who is really the best actress in the show. She aims for comedy, but is in fact much too good a serious actress to let herself go. And you have to love her for it.

And Salma Hayek, who somehow manages to play herself (as well as produce the show) all through the show. I have to say though, she, like Julia Roberts, is very good at being herself, so no harm done.

So, with Betty in tow, I start this Summer 2008.