FILM AND TV
LGBTQ Netfl ix Offerings in 2021
Watch new shows, movies, and documentaries
BY STEVE ERICKSON
During the pandemic,
Netfl ix has cemented
its place as the center
of our media comfort
food diet in harrowing times.
“Schitt’s Creek,” which envisioned
a world where homophobia
doesn’t exist and wealthy people
can be humbled into improving
themselves, was a large part of
that. While the Canadian TV show
started airing in the US on cable
through the Pop network, it fi rst
found a mass audience and made
out gay actor/creator Dan Levy a
star when it started streaming on
Netfl ix alongside other queer shows
from the recent past like “Orange
is the New Black” and “Sense8.”
The streaming service is notorious
for dropping a dozen new fi lms
and TV series each week. Here is a
guide to some of the best LGBTQthemed
content to watch on Netfl ix
in the new year:
“Big Mouth”
“Big Mouth” looks back to ‘90s
animated comedy, complete with
a crude drawing style and sense
of humor never more than a few
minutes away from jokes about
masturbation or periods. But it
has an earnestness and sense
of responsibility missing from
earlier, more cynical shows like
“South Park” and “Beavis & Butt-
Head.” Many parents would be
pissed off if their 11-year-old kids
watched it, but the show seems designed
to compensate for the inadequacy
of American sex education
classes, including fi lling its cast
with LGBTQ and BIPOC characters
and correcting its mistakes
(like suggesting last season that
identifying as bisexual is transphobic.)
Season four, which introduced
a newly out transgender
character in its fi rst episode, premiered
on Netfl ix last December.
“Funny Boy”
Deepa Mehta’s fi lm relates to a
romance between two Sri Lankan
teenage boys as civil war between
the country’s Sinhalese and Tamil
Leah Lewis and Alexxis Lemire star in “The Half of It.”
Filmmaker Lilly Wachowski in Sam Feder’s “Disclosure.”
ethnic groups heats up in the ‘80s.
The Indian-Canadian director
starts with her hero, Arjie, as an
8-year-old young boy whose gayness
his family can already detect,
and then jumps ahead a decade to
show him in high school. He and
his boyfriend look to British pop
singers like David Bowie and Boy
George as models of acceptance, but
their love can’t solve the problems
of a country rife with violence.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
Directed by out gay Public Theater
veteran George C. Wolfe, “Ma
Rainey’s Black Bottom” takes place
during the rehearsal and recording
of a new song by the blues great of
the title. A bisexual woman, Rainey
(Viola Davis) is affectionate with her
girlfriend Dussie Mae (Taylor Paige),
who also sleeps with her trumpet
player (Chadwick Boseman.) Although
the male musicians in Rainey’s
backing band get more attention
than Rainey herself, this showcases
several great, volatile performances
NETFLIX/KC BAILEY
NETFLIX
— including Boseman’s raw turn,
fi lmed a year before his death from
colon cancer last August — with
Ruben Santiago-Hudson smartly
adapting August Wilson’s play.
“Pose”
In January, the second season
of this groundbreaking TV series,
produced by Ryan Murphy,
comes to Netfl ix. Set at roughly
the same time “Paris Is Burning”
was made, “Pose” covers similar
ground but tries to do a better job
of letting trans women represent
themselves. (It’s depressing to realize
that this was innovative for
TV when it began airing in 2018.)
Instead of serving up misery porn,
“Pose” emphasizes the joy of ballroom
voguing and its characters’
sense of community while still
showing the discrimination and
violence trans women often face.
“The Prom”
Does Ryan Murphy ever sleep?
The second fi lm he directed for Netfl
ix this year (following his remake
of “The Boys in the Band”), “The
Prom” adapted the popular musical
about homophobia at a high school
in a small Indiana town. Broadway
stars Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep)
and Barry Glickman (James Corden,
in a performance widely criticized
for embracing stereotypes of
fl amboyant gay men) swoop in to
try save Middle America from itself.
“The Half of It”
Director Alice Wu’s teen rom-com
is a lesbian equivalent to “Love, Simon.”
However, the plot is inspired
by “Cyrano de Bergerac,” as jock
Paul (Daniel Diemer) solicits shy
classmate Ellie (Leah Lewis) to help
him woo a popular girl, only for Ellie
to fall in love with her. It’s the
kind of fun, affi rmative coming-ofage
story that many LGBTQ adults
wish Hollywood had been making
when we were actually teens.
“Disclosure”
The transgender version of “The
Celluloid Closet,” “Disclosure” surveys
trans representation since
the silent movies. It’s marred by its
near-exclusive focus on mainstream
English-language movies and TV
rather than independent work created
by LGBTQ people that offered
a more positive view of the community.
But with an entirely trans and
non-binary set of on-screen voices,
it mounts a very convincing case
that Hollywood has damaged perceptions
of trans lives.
“Your Name Engraved Herein”
Released in Taiwan last December
and quickly becoming
the most popular LGBTQ-themed
fi lm in the country’s history, “Your
Name Engraved Herein” relates to
a love story between two boys in a
Catholic high school as the country
transitioned from martial law
to democracy in 1987. The tone fi ts
the somber but promising times
as the characters struggle to accept
their sexuality amid stigma
and pressure to pretend to be heterosexual.
A fi nale shows us what
happened to them 20 years later in
Canada.
January 14 - January 27, 2 28 021 | GayCityNews.com
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