The new-media folks who bring you the Web's "Vice" magazine are set to debut their cable TV channel Viceland on Feb. 29, so they sent us screeners of some of the programming they'll offer. Here are our impressions of a few of their programs.
"Gaycation" follows out lesbian actress Ellen Page and her gay best friend Ian Daniel on their travels around the world looking for LGBTQ people and culture. The series promises installments in Brazil, Jamaica, and elsewhere, but the first episode finds them roaming the refined yet vibrant world of modern-day Japan.
Page and Daniel are adorable and earnest in their efforts to uncover gay liberation, but although they find gay people in Japan, they also find a highly traditional culture that doesn't exalt difference or queerness. They go to "gay bars" in Tokyo that function more like gentlemen's clubs catering to specific fetishes, but although they seem to be greeted warmly, there's no mention of a xenophobic aspect of Japanese society and identity - to wit, many Japanese are not interested in meeting other Asians, let alone Western men, for erotic commingling.
The two young American things also accompany the proprietor of a "friends-for-hire" service on a call in which he is there to offer moral support to a young man coming out to his single mother. The not-insignificant presence of Page and Daniel in this scene, not to mention the intrusion of the Viceland camera crew, makes a delicate situation even more precarious, and points to this series' unintended dilemma - in trying to find the sensational and the tabloid fodder, "Gaycation" can be oblivious to the native culture and mores it intends to explore. Still, did we say Page and Daniel are adorable? Because they are, very.
"F*ck That's Delicious" features famous fat Queens, New York rapper Action Bronson and co-stars Big Body Bes and Mayhem, also living large, in what's billed as the world's first-ever rap food show. Action and his crew travel from concert to concert enjoying food, drink, and herbs along the way. This is a posse that puts the gut in gluttony, and the show turns out to be hefty fun. The New York Times quotes some of Action's lyrics: Women love him because they "saw me plate some melon and prosciutt'." He boasts of "seasonal vegetables lookin' exceptional." Served sea urchin-infused eggs, Big Body compares the gourmet dish to a "KFC mixed bowl."
Weediquette finds "Vice" correspondent Krishna Andavolu examining the science, culture and economics of the emerging green economy. Hopefully while high.
In "Noisey," correspondent Zach Goldbaum explores new music scenes around the world.
Flophouse episodes take us inside the communal homes of up-and-coming stand-up comedians Clare O'Kane, Solomon Georgio, Brandon Wardell and others.
Balls Deep, per Viceland: " 'Vice' producer and correspondent Thomas Morton perfects his version of immersive journalism, embedding himself into the lives of others to experience what life looks like from their point of view. Whether it's a Pentecostal preacher, a Muslim-American family, or gay bears in Provincetown, Thomas absorbs every part of his counterparts' lives: Their customs, philosophies, their habits and habitats. "Balls Deep" is the most entertaining experiment in radical empathy ever committed to film (video, actually)."
With "Huang's World," Eddie Huang, chef and author of the best-selling book "Fresh Off the Boat," takes a personal-is-political look at food culture. Huang says, "Politics is in the plate," and dishes it up for the series, coming later this spring.