As we were watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving the other night and musing over the whole holiday season (and wondering what we would be watching when the networks are showing nothing but holiday specials over the next month), we were left with a few things to contemplate when it comes to the tube.
Take that Charlie Brown special. We've been watching Charlie and the whole Peanuts gang since we were very small, and the premises never go out of fashion (nor, inexplicably, have most of the clothes). So there we were, watching Charlie Brown invite over some of his friends for Thanksgiving dinner — kids who seem not to have families of their own, like Peppermint Patty, Marcy and Franklin — and thinking about how much we like the Peanuts gang.
Why are we discussing Charlie Brown in The Lavender Tube, you ask? Well, because the Peanuts gang is all misfits, marginal kids that seem to have very quirky personality traits and a difficult time fitting in. Particularly Charlie Brown and those three kids he had over for Thanksgiving dinner. Notice how Charlie Brown never likes girls, and gets squeamish when girls like him?
Peppermint Patty is either transgendered (why does her acolyte Marcy call her "Sir?") or a lesbian. She has a deep male voice and wears Birkenstocks. She seems to have a crush on Charlie Brown, leaning toward the transgendered theory. She and Marcy are the only Peanuts girls who don't wear dresses. Hmmmm. (Franklin hangs with them — he's the token black kid.)
What we like about the Peanuts stories is how they always resolve in peace and harmony. And acceptance. There's an awful lot of acceptance in these shows, particularly of difference. Lucy is the only one who is unaccepting of others, and she is portrayed as the least likable character because of this trait.
Underscoring these storylines is the haunting music of jazz great Vince Gauraldi (a native San Franciscan who died suddenly in 1976; he was only 47). This music lends a melancholy air to all the Charlie Brown specials. A Charlie Brown Christmas will air in another week. We recommend watching it for the wonderful encoded messages.
While Charlie Brown set the tone for us for the holiday season, others were clearly not getting in the holiday spirit. There was a lot of bashing on the tube this week, and we didn't like the looks of it. Take the Kelly Ripa, Clay Aiken, Rosie O'Donnell tiff. This little tempest-in-a-daytime-TV-teabag took up several hours of tabloid TV show airtime on Extra, ET and The Insider . Why? Pop-star Clay Aiken of runner-up American Idol fame (he was second to Ruben Studdard in 2003, who has gone on to obscurity while Aiken's star has continued to rise) was a guest host fill-in for Regis Philbin on the Regis and Kelly show.
Aiken has been playing coy (just like Liberace) with his sexual orientation for a couple of years now. He admits to running over and killing a cat on purpose, but won't acknowledge being gay. What's up with that? Several talk-show hosts have been trying to get him to admit he's queer, but he won't. He denied it in several magazine interviews, like one in Rolling Stone after his big win, and most recently Diane Sawyer tried to hold his clay feet to the fire, but he got all huffy and she backed down. Perhaps he could find himself a nice wife like Tom Cruise did, and a fake baby to go with.
Anyway, this is the lead-in to the scandal du jour . At one point while hosting with Kelly Ripa, he put his hand over her mouth. She got upset, said he was disrespectful and proclaimed, "I don't know where that hand has been."
Aiken apologized. Then Rosie O'Donnell, who has hijacked The View since Barbara Walters hired her to fill the prodigious seats of Star Jones and Meredith Vieira, said Ripa's comment was homophobic. Oy.
Enter the tabloids. Ripa, who has done a great deal of work for AIDS and has never said anything even remotely homophobic in the past, denied the comment was homophobic. She said Aiken had been shaking hands with everyone in the audience, and it's cold and flu season. Rosie wouldn't back down. We would like to know why we didn't hear Rosie sound off when the big anti-queer moment occurred on the set of a different ABC show, Grey's Anatomy. When T.R. Knight came out, some anti-gay slurs got tossed around. Rosie was mum then. How come? Only standing up for closet cases? Even Oprah mentioned it briefly when she did a show last week with the entire Grey's Anatomy cast.
The Rosie/Ripa feud was quelled when Rosie and Kelly had a tete a tete the day before Thanksgiving. Tis the season. But: Did Rosie miss the part where Aiken insists he's not gay? And how come Aiken didn't chime in that it couldn't be a homophobic statement because he's not gay? Stay tuned. This one isn't over.
What does appear to be over, however, is Michael Richards' career. The comedian, best known as crazy Kramer of Seinfeld fame, did a Mel Gibson last week at an LA comedy club when he went into a racist tirade at a couple of African American hecklers during his act. Then he made it all worse by appearing on the David Letterman show with Jerry Seinfeld and apologizing.
The apology (available on YouTube) was a train wreck. We saw it and wondered WTF we were looking at. It was incredibly painful to see someone self-immolate.
Memo to all bigoted celebrities: Once you find yourself about to assert that you are not racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic, you are . People who aren't never find themselves in the position of having to assert their innocence, because they haven't made the racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic statements in the first place. It doesn't come to mind.
Strange bedfellows
All of which segues nicely into one of the best shows you aren't watching, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. For the past two weeks there has been a storyline about homophobia, the evangelical Right and the red state/blue state divide. It's been smart, well-acted and altogether too good for network TV. And regrettably, only about 10 people have seen it.
Two of the show's main characters, Matt (Matthew Perry, who has proven for good that he is way more than the sum of Friends ) and Harriet (Sarah Paulson), are ex-lovers still in love with each other. Matt's a lefty liberal with superb politics who writes the show, and Harry's an evangelical Christian who is its star. She's also a Christian singer.
One day, Harry makes an off-the-cuff comment to a reporter who asks her what she thinks about gay marriage. She mentions something about the Bible proclaiming being queer is an abomination, but adds that the Bible also says judge not, lest ye be judged. The tabloids pick up on the first part, and word gets around.
One night soon after, she's on the Sunset Strip with two other cast members, and some guys come up wanting her autograph on a CD. She's her usual charming self and thanks them for watching the show. Then they take the CD, stomp on it and call her a homophobic bitch. Things escalate, she gets shoved, her cast buddies shove the thuggish gay guys back, and one falls over a hedge. This leads, naturally, to lawsuits. (Just like the two guys who heckled Richards are now suing him for his racist riposte.) It also leads to fine drama and great dialogue.
Some critics have said Studio 60 is too preachy. We disagree. If it has one major flaw, it's that the comedy routines for the SNL show that's being put on are never, ever, funny unless they are stolen outright from old SNL material, which happens disturbingly often but not often enough to make it funny. Alas, just like SNL since Tina Fey left and took the funny to 30 Rock.
This Studio 60 storyline was great, particularly because these are not black-and-white characters, but grey ones. Harry isn't a bad person, and Matt does still love her, even if he hates some of her politics. So when Matt screams at her that two queers getting married doesn't impact them getting married in any way, we know that he's talking about more than just the political, he's going for the personal, too. Then she reveals that the Christian concerts she was set to give have been cancelled because they think she's too liberal.
This show has all the verve that its creator, Aaron Sorkin, put into The West Wing, but it's about real-life politics around the water-cooler. We learn, for example, that Tom (Nathan Corddry), who is the one who saved Harry from the gay thugs, has a brother who has re-upped for a third tour of duty in Afghanistan, exponentially increasing his chances of being killed.
In real life, there is very little black-and-white: the tone of real life is inherently on the vast gray scale. Studio 60 is all about how that happens and how complex people deal with it. Which is why we'd like to see a lot more people watching it.
Since the only place we are really going to get discourse on queers seems to be on shows that have no queer characters, like Studio 60 and that other fave of ours, ABC's Boston Legal (David Kelley is even more political than Sorkin), you need to stay tuned.
That said, where have all the queer characters gone? Or their gayness? There are about 10 queer characters on network TV, six of them are on three shows, and all of them are men, except for Bianca on All My Children.
It wasn't that long ago that Will and Jack kissing on Will & Grace (which wasn't even for real) was a scandal. Now we have two men in bed together every week on CBS' The Class. Alas, they are so tedious .
It's not that we have to have edgy. Not every show can be The Wire or Dexter . If all TV were like those two shows, no one would do anything but watch TV. That said, why can't the queers on The Class be more, well, interesting?
We watched W&G religiously. It was always funny and always edgy queer. The gay boys of The Class put the argh in assimilation. We just don't care about them in an otherwise pretty charming and funny show.
Meanwhile, over on ABC, we would like to be able to say we love Brothers & Sisters, but we don't. Except for the edgy gay male co-habitation. Alas, it's framed in the context of a Grey's Anatomy-meets-What About Brian? show that simply doesn't turn us on. We have never had the passion for Calista Flockhart and Sally Field that others have had, and they are the show. But for those who love the sturm und drang of a nighttime soap, this is the one for you. For those who want some lesbians on the tube outside of The Wire and Rosie and Ellen on daytime, there are just no lesbians on the TV landscape. Bianca (AMC ) was neutered when she went to Paris, and now all she can do is relays between Kendall and Josh. Keri was neutered on ER when her lover died and she had to fight for custody of their son. And in some weird move reported by TV Squad on November 24, the CW (the edgy network, remember?) nixed a kiss on Veronica Mars between star Keri Pratt and guest star Patty Hearst (yes, that Patty Hearst).
Was it the age difference? Because we remember a similar age difference between Antholy Heald and Katie Sagal on Boston Legal at the beginning of sweeps, and (talk about jumping the shark!) they were mother and son! And it was full, open-mouth kissing. Where are those evangelicals when you need them? Oh right, out buying meth and getting massaged by prostitutes.
Even though every time we turn around, women are casually kissing on prime time (always guest stars, never cast members), this one was dumped. No reason why. Especially since November is sweeps month, and Patty Hearst! Go figure.
On daytime, we have two neutered queers, Bianca on AMC and Luke (the fabulous Van Hansis), who is always referring to himself as "your lonely and boyfriendless cousin, brother, etc." and one MIA queer, Lukas (formerly played by Ben Hogestyn, now playing straight over on Bold and Beautiful, where his pretty face belongs) on General Hospital, who came out, then fled Port Charles.
All we know is, for Christmas we want more queers for next season on network TV. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask for more than 10 queer characters out of 700+ characters on network, does it? No, it doesn't. Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown are fine for the kids, but we adults need some role models, too.
Besides, Santa, we have been naughty and nice in all the right places. Stay tuned!