We've waited a long time for a drama series as sumptuous, lush and intrinsically gay as FX's "The Assassination of Gianni Versace," season two of Ryan Murphy's "American Crime Story" anthology series. From the opening sequence, laid out like a Renaissance tableaux with the soundtrack of Albinoni's heartrending Adagio in G, it's breathtaking. Gianni Versace awakens, grateful for another day, because he is perilously ill. He walks down a hallway of carved wood fairly littered with art, pulls out a silk robe, takes some pills and walks purposefully onto a balcony to greet the day. He is served breakfast and, in a gesture that tells us he is beloved by those who work for him in this palatial Miami Beach estate, he puts a hand tenderly on his manservant's arm, the "grazie" murmured with the addendum of that touch.
These scenes are contrapuntal to those of Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), gearing up to murder the designer, who at that point in 1997 was one of the most famous and admired gay men in the world. And so it begins, this intertwined story of killer and victim. It's gorgeous, brutal, and enthralling. All the things Murphy did in "Feud: Betty and Joan" to re-create an era and the Zeitgeist of that era, he does here. But here there is a breadth of love and savagery that perfectly approximates the gay world then. If Ryan Murphy never did another thing (but he's got several in the works), this would be his epic piece de resistance.
As created by Murphy and written by Tom Rob Smith, it's a compendium of the parallel lives of a sociopathic gay narcissist and one of the greatest designers of the age. It's about how gayness both expands and trips up genius. It's a tale of self-loathing and the perdition that goes with it. We watched twice because we wanted to be sure we hadn't missed a moment, a pattern, a throwaway that wasn't really a throwaway.
"ACS: Versace" is particularly impactful for how fundamentally gay the series is. Heterosexuality is so far to the peripheral fringe of the gay world that both Versace and Cunanan inhabit, we forget it exists. Until the murder. As Donatella Versace tells her board after the killing, "They'll judge the killer, yes. But they'll judge the victim, too. First they'll weep, then they'll whisper."
After the murder we are reminded in big, brutal slaps of the straight world and all its ugly, homophobic micro and macro aggressions. Some of these come from the least expected places, like from Versace's adored and adoring sister, Donatella (the inimitable Penelope Cruz in an extraordinary tour de force), who swoops in hours after the killing while Versace's partner of 15 years, Antonio D'Amico (Ricky Martin), is still covered in Versace's blood, to order him about like a servant and dismiss how distraught he is with some disgust. Prior to that, detectives grill him in the most intrusive and homophobic ways.
The four main players are perfectly cast. Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez is a pitch-perfect Versace. We lean in to his genius and his way with people as he dresses a soprano before the opening of an opera he's designed the clothes for. She is uncomfortable and even a little put-upon at the outset, but he woos her with his story and his subtle appreciation of her beauty. It's a brief yet telling scene.
When Cunanan first meets Versace at a nightclub, he is at first dismissive, annoyed at this pretty but intrusive young man who's interrupting his tete a tete with someone else. But as Cunanan ingratiates himself with a self-confident tale of his own Italian family, Versace warms to him and we see the side his friends must see, a caring, compassionate man.
That is replayed in another scene post-opera with Cunanan, in a throwaway goodbye, which would be his last, to D'Amico, as he heads out on his daily walk to a nearby newsstand. Even when he turns down a request for an autograph, and we see it is more a question of not being physically able to deviate from his routine, he is kind. Later that couple will tear the page from a magazine and dip a Versace ad in his blood.
The background music is the music of our lives at that time, like Lisa Stansfield's "All Around the World," while Cunanan is trying on clothes in his friend's walk-in closet, or Indeep's "Last Night the DJ Saved My Life" as he cruises up to Versace's table at the club. Each touch adds verisimilitude. We see parallel lives: The gay boy from Calabria who became a star, the gay boy from California who became infamous.
As the series unfolds, we will continually be asking the same question: What is real, what is imagined, how did this evolve? There are questions about whether Versace and Cunanan ever actually met, or if Cunanan invented their relationship in his tales to his straight and gay friends. Cunanan is the quintessential unreliable narrator, and this is, despite the title, fundamentally his story, seen through his lens. The scenes he shares with Versace are tender and muted. "I'm so happy in this moment," he tells the designer in a scene after the opera where they share champagne and he spins yet another yarn. Versace is struck by his beauty and self-confidence, and when they touch, it's believable. Versace sees something of himself in Cunanan in these scenes.
Or so we are led to believe. For all the great acting in this series, without the absolute brilliance of Darren Criss' portrayal of Cunanan, it would all fall apart. He is sublime in this role. Gone is the unmemorable Blane of "Glee." This is a searing performance that is so nuanced, vivid, and authentic, it leaves you aching for more. Whether Criss' Cunanan is standing over the bed of his best friend, and her husband fingering his penis through his briefs, or having an hysterical episode in his battered truck after he kills Versace, all of it is pitch-perfect.
Hansberry Rules
"My name is Lorraine Hansberry. I am a writer. I was born on the South Side of Chicago. I was born black and a female. I was born in a Depression after one World War, and came into my adolescence during another. I, like all of you, have seen incredible displays of man's inhumanity to man."
So begins "Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart," a new documentary about the most famous lesbian playwright in American history, and arguably the most famous black playwright as well. Tracy Heather Strain's film for PBS' American Masters series premiered Jan.19, and can be viewed on demand or online. Narrated by actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson, the film features Hansberry's sister Mamie Hansberry, as well as many actors who knew the playwright (Ruby Dee, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier).
This is historical record about Hansberry and an era in the Civil Rights and progressive political movements of the 1950s and 60s. The film makes extensive use of Hansberry's own words, those she wrote and those from interviews, voiced by Emmy-winning actress Anika Noni Rose. Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. This is what we have of her. It is a lot for such a brief trajectory, and a story that has been in need of telling.
Kaladaa Crowell, Brandi Mells, Shanta Myers and Kerrice Lewis: These are not the characters in a new TV series featuring black lesbians by Shonda Rhimes or Lena Waithe. These are black lesbians who were targeted and murdered in the past few weeks. Oh, and their stories never made anybody's news. While our community (rightly) focuses attention on domestic violence and other murders of trans women of color, lesbians are getting killed, and no one is saying their names, in this case from West Palm Beach, New York and Washington, D.C. According to director of communications at GLAAD Sue Yacka-Bible, the murders are "incredibly alarming. It's deeply troubling and a tremendous tragedy for the LGBTQ communities."
As we move into year two of the most anti-LGBT administration in living history, Trump has upped the ante, making good on his promise to evangelicals to put God back in everything, Constitution be damned. On Jan. 17, Trump took aim at the LGBT community when he ordered a new "Conscience and Religious Freedom" division of HHS. Termed a "civil rights action," the new division protects healthcare providers and others in the healthcare industry who claim their religious beliefs would be violated by providing services to LGBT people or to women requesting birth control or other family planning/rape-crisis healthcare necessities.
The story barely made a ripple, between Trump's porn star expose and the GOP shutting down the government. But GLAAD executive director Sarah Kate Ellis was succinct in a statement on Jan. 18: "Any healthcare worker who has moral objections to providing medically necessary care to an entire vulnerable population is in the wrong line of work," said Ellis. "Denying a transgender or gay person-or any person-life saving care if they walk into an emergency room is far from a moral act, it is unjust and dangerous. Trump, Pence, and Trump's appointees have tried to establish blatantly bigoted policies that harm transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, and history will neither forget nor forgive this Administration's attacks on its own people."
This is the peril of the Trump presidency. There's so much chaos that new directives that impact ordinary folks - gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans folks - trying to live our lives without violence, pay our bills without getting fired from our jobs for being gender non-conforming, don't even register on the Richter scale of outrage or in the news, fake or otherwise. Now onward to Year 2.
TGIT was back on Jan. 18, and we were so here for it. "Grey's Anatomy" introduced a trans man character as one of the new interns. Casey (Alex Blue Davis) is also a computer hacker who got into some trouble with the government. "That wasn't on your resume," says the hospital's chief, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), after she's enlisted Casey to hack into the hospital's system to override hackers who have taken the hospital's system hostage for a huge ransom. No it wasn't, Casey tells her, then reveals he is transgender. It is a moment made dramatic by its lack of drama. Bailey just looks at Casey, and that's it.
Davis is a native Californian, a musician, has appeared on "NCIS," "2 Broke Girls" other series. He is also featured on "B-Team," a spin-off about the interns of "Grey's." Executive producer Krista Vernoff told GLAAD the casting department of Shonda Rhimes' flagship series, now second-longest-running scripted drama on TV (after "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"), wanted a trans actor to play the trans role. "Grey's Anatomy" already has lesbian and bisexual characters, and regularly features LGBT storylines in both personal and medical sides. Another first for Rhimes. Davis becomes the first trans man to be a series regular on network drama.
That wasn't even the big story on "Grey's," which has had an arc over more than a year about Jo Wilson's (Camilla Luddington) ex being so abusive she feared for her life, fled her marriage and changed her name. In the winter finale, Jo's ex-husband (disturbingly for Gleeks, played with just the right touch of sinister gaslighting by Matthew Morrison, everyone's fave teacher, Mr. Schuester, for all six seasons on "Glee") turned up at Grey Sloan Memorial in the last 30 seconds of the show. The collective gasp began.
As the new season opened Jan. 18, Jo can barely breathe as Dr. Paul Stadler (Morrison) is introduced to her co-workers. Turns out he's one of those evil-genius guys, stellar resume, exalted in his profession, does groundbreaking work, who just happens to beat the hell out of his women.
It was an important story in the #TimesUp/#MeToo lexicon. Jo's character has been on "Grey's" since 2012. She's engaged to one of the original series regulars, Alex (Justin Chambers). Her plight has been revealed over a protracted period, as we have gotten to know and love the character.
So when Stadler shows up with his new fianc�e and wants a divorce, Jo should be thrilled to have him permanently out of her life. But he's tracked her down, even though she's changed her name. He's menacing in ways we see because we are viewing him from Jo's POV. The insidious nature of abuse unfolds. Jo tries to warn his new soon-to-be wife, and Stadler returns to the hospital to threaten her.
TV is at its best when tit tells authentic stories that resonate for their honesty, and act as templates for social justice. At show's end Luddington did a PSA for domestic violence, explaining that it's not always physical violence, it's also forms of emotional and psychological abuse.
Meanwhile on "Scandal," Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and Fenton (Dean Norris) are over. Maybe. We hope not. Jake (Scott Foley) is trying to wreck Cyrus' life again, because killing Cyrus' first husband James wasn't enough.
Then on "How to Get Away with Murder" the end game is near: Will Oliver go to jail? What about Tegan and Michaela? There was so much happening in this episode that our head was spiraling off. But there's so much gay (what about Bonnie and Annalise?) and other intrigue, we're on tenterhooks.
Finally, Amazon has cancelled Tig Notaro's fabulous "One Mississippi," which made every critics' 10 Best list for 2017, with no explanation. Hopefully Netflix or someone else will pick up this wonderful series. Hopefully one day there can be lesbian programming that doesn't get axed by straight white guys too busy harassing women to notice we watch TV, too. So for the sublime, the groundbreaking, the historic and the news you're not seeing, remember you must stay tuned.