Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      The Joan Rivers Card Catalog of Jokes Finds a Home

      by

      Take a look at some of the artifacts from her archive, which includes 65,000 cross-referenced gags and is headed to the National Comedy Center.When Joan Rivers died in 2014, ending one of the greatest careers in modern comedy, several groups were interested in acquiring her archives, which included a meticulously organized collection of 65,000 typewritten jokes.Her daughter, Melissa Rivers, recalled a conversation with a representative from the Smithsonian Institution who wanted the catalog of jokes but said it would not be on permanent display. Her mind instantly went to the final tracking shot of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” in which the golden Ark of the Covenant is locked inside a crate and placed in a vast warehouse with hundreds of other crates.“I couldn’t do that because so much of who she was is in those files,” Melissa Rivers told me on a video call from Los Angeles. For her mother, a pioneering stand-up and withering critic of celebrity fashion, “a view was always important.”Instead, Rivers is donating the extensive collection to the National Comedy Center, the high-tech museum in Jamestown, N.Y., joining the archives of A-list comics like George Carlin and Carl Reiner. The fact that the jokes will be accessible is only one of the reasons for Melissa Rivers’s decision.The museum is in the planning stages of an interactive exhibition that will center on Joan Rivers’s card catalog of jokes and include material covering a vast swath of comedy history, from the 1950s to 2015. The show will allow visitors to explore the file in depth.Jamestown is where Lucille Ball grew up, and “Joan Rivers was the first headliner I booked for the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival the year we announced to the world our intention to build the National Comedy Center,” Journey Gunderson, the executive director, told me by phone. Melissa Rivers, a television personality in her own right, was on hand for the groundbreaking in 2015.When it comes to the Joan Rivers joke collection, “I don’t know that another exists that is nearly as vast,” Gunderson said. In Carlin’s archives, by contrast, the jokes were “mainly scraps of paper organized into Ziploc baggies then put into a folder by topic.”Rivers, who wrote gags at all hours, paid close attention to setups and punchlines, typing them up and cross-referencing them by categories like “Parents hated me” or “Las Vegas” or “No sex appeal.” The largest subject area is “Tramp,” which includes 1,756 jokes.Along with this bounty of material, the collection includes snapshots of other aspects of this major cultural figure, including her sense of fashion, like the pearls and a little black dress she wore early in her career as well as the multiple boas from her later fashionista years. Here’s a look at a few of the artifacts headed to the center.Insults in CharacterThe jokes were categorized by topics like fashion and career, and even cross-referenced.Joan Rivers EstateAs you can see from these cards, Joan Rivers often made herself the butt of the joke, leaning on tight, snappy punchlines to describe herself as unwanted or ugly or old. Gunderson said the self-deprecating gibes emerged from a character “she was using as a position of power to comment on the plight of woman.” In real life, Melissa Rivers said that “every now and again, she would say that for whatever age she was, she looked good. But that was that.” Rivers added that those jokes came from a real place. “That was a part of her, but maybe not as crippling as everyone assumed it would be,” she said. “But she also knew she looked good.”An Unparalleled CatalogIn a scene from the documentary “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” the comedian explains how she kept a record of her jokes and cross-indexed them.Break Thru Films/IFC“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” (from 2010 and available on major platforms) is one of the greatest documentaries about a stand-up comic ever made: candid, unflinching and alert to the brutal amount of work necessary to succeed in show business. It also introduced the world to the cabinet of jokes that Rivers kept in her home. Gunderson, of the National Comedy Center, described the catalog as one of “the crown jewels of comedy that exist on planet Earth.”Help With HecklersWhen Rivers was starting out, she planned her responses to hecklers.Joan Rivers EstateRivers, a fixture on television who never stopped performing live, loved sparring with a crowd. But early in her career, she prepared for rambunctious audience members with this list of comebacks that could be weaponized to mock hecklers without losing the tempo of her set. Melissa Rivers said she saw her mother upset by a heckler only once, when later in her career someone was offended by a joke about Helen Keller. “She spun around and said: ‘Don’t you dare! My mother was deaf. She lost her hearing early. Don’t tell me what’s inappropriate.’”Early AmbitionsRivers hoped for a career as an actress and regularly went to the theater.Joan Rivers EstateBefore Joan Rivers became a comedian, she wanted to be a dramatic actress. After graduating from Barnard College in 1954, she commissioned this series of head shots to display her range. She didn’t make her Broadway debut until 1972 with “Fun City,” which she co-wrote (with her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, and Lester Colodny) and starred in. It closed after nine performances. But Rivers remained a stalwart fan of the stage, a regular at shows and a savvy commentator on the television series “Theater Talk.” When she went to the theater, she always dressed up and insisted her family do the same. Melissa Rivers said: “She always said, ‘This is church.’”Ticket From a Momentous TimeThe short-lived late-night show proved both a high and low point in Rivers’s career.Joan Rivers EstateWhen Joan Rivers left her position as the permanent guest host of “The Tonight Show” on NBC to start her own version in 1986 on the then-fledging network Fox, she became the first woman in the modern era to host a late-night talk show. It was a bold move, a career landmark that also preceded a painful period of her life. She made an enemy of the “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson, who saw her departure as a betrayal. “That made her angry,” Melissa Rivers said. “Like she often said, if it had been a man, it would have been the great send-off to my protégé.” Rivers was banished from the Carson show and fired from her own the following year. Her husband, a producer on “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers,” died by suicide months later. “It took a huge toll on their marriage and our family,” Melissa Rivers recalled, describing the period represented by this ticket as one of “great elation and great horror.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      The Iron Sheik, Villainous Hall of Fame Wrestler, Is Dead

      by

      Khosrow Vaziri drew on his Iranian heritage to create a caricature of a Middle Eastern villain and became one of the most memorable heels in wrestling history.The Iron Sheik, a Hall of Fame wrestler who became a villainous star in the 1980s, facing off against Hulk Hogan and teaming up with a wrestler who claimed to represent the Soviet Union, died in his sleep early Wednesday morning at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was either 81 (according to his passport) or 80 (according to him).The death was confirmed by his managers, Page and Jian Magen, who said they did not know the cause.Foreign-style heels are a time-honored tradition in professional wrestling, and the Iron Sheik, whose legal name was Khosrow Vaziri, became one of the most recognizable of them all.The Sheik drew loosely on his Iranian heritage to build a caricature of a Middle Eastern villain. He wore a thick mustache, boots with curled toes, and kaffiyeh, Middle Eastern head scarves — which are not generally worn in Iran.At the height of the Sheik’s infamy, and in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, he often stomped into the ring waving an Iranian flag emblazoned with the face of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, to take on stereotypically American wrestlers.The Sheik’s signature move was the camel clutch, in which he sat on an opponent’s back, locked his fingers beneath the other wrestler’s chin and pulled up. His unfortunate opponent’s spine seemed to bend like a drawn bow.In 1983 the Sheik defeated Bob Backlund to win the World Wrestling Federation championship. But his time with the title was short.About a month later, on Jan. 23, 1984, the Sheik defended his title against Hulk Hogan, then a relatively new face in the World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE), in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.The match seemed to be going the Sheik’s way, and he trapped Hogan in a camel clutch. But Hogan stood up with the Sheik on his back and slammed him into a corner pylon.The Sheik flopped to the mat. Hogan launched off the ropes, leaped into a leg drop on the Sheik and then pinned him. It was the first of Hogan’s six WWE championships and the beginning of Hulkamania.The defeat continued to sting even decades later, the Sheik, very much in character, told WWE in an interview in 2014.“Hulk Hogan, only thing he had was luck,” he said. “I have one bad night, I lost my belt.”Sgt. Slaughter was a regular opponent for the Sheik, who lost a major match to him at Madison Square Garden later in 1984.The next year the Sheik teamed up with Nikolai Volkoff, a heel supposedly wrestling for the Soviet Union (he was actually from Croatia), and went on to win the World Tag Team Championship at the inaugural Wrestlemania.The Sheik also dialed up his character’s anti-American rhetoric. He often snatched the microphone from an announcer and shouted “Iran No. 1! Russia No. 1!”Then he would glare at the audience, shout “U.S.A.!” and spit on the ground.The audience reaction could be so vicious that despite his ferociousness in the ring, the Sheik sometimes feared for his safety.Keith Elliot Greenberg, a wrestling historian and writer, said in a phone interview that he thought fans sometimes believed the Sheik’s character too much.“The reality was he was actually a very loyal American, and was grateful to the United States for the opportunities it afforded him,” Mr. Greenberg said.The Iron Sheik in action against Chavo Guerrero in the 1980s.George Napolitano/MediaPunch, via Associated PressHossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri was born in Damghan, a town about 200 miles east of Tehran. His birth date appeared as March 15, 1942, on his passport, but he was not certain that it was accurate and celebrated his birthday on Sept. 9. His parents, Ghassem and Maryam Vaziri, owned a farm that grew pistachios, grapes and other crops.When he was a boy, his family moved to Tehran and opened a wrestling gym where some of Iran’s foremost wrestlers trained. He grew up immersed in the sport.Vaziri became a talented wrestler, and his prominence helped him secure a job as a bodyguard for the family of the shah of Iran. But after the Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Gholamreza Takhti died under mysterious circumstances in 1968, perhaps for displeasing the shah, Vaziri left Iran for the United States and settled in Minneapolis.He wrestled with an amateur club in Minnesota, winning an Amateur Athletic Union Greco-Roman wrestling tournament in 1971, and served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team in 1972 and 1976 before making the transition to full-time professional wrestling.Vaziri trained under Verne Gagne, the promoter of the American Wrestling Association. The idea for the Iron Sheik came from Mary Gagne, Verne’s wife, Mr. Greenberg said, though Vaziri experimented with other versions of the character over the years.In 1975 he married Caryl Peterson, who survives him. He is also survived by their daughters, Nicole and Tanya; a sister; and five grandchildren.During the 1980s the Sheik started using drugs and drinking heavily. In 1987 he and Hacksaw Jim Duggan — a babyface, as good-guy wrestlers are known — were arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike after police officers found cocaine and marijuana in their car.The Sheik appeared in a match as an ally of Sgt. Slaughter’s in 1991, and in 1997 he managed another wrestler, the Sultan. But his professional career mostly dried up as his drug use accelerated in the 1990s. He struggled with substance abuse for a long time, but according to an article Mr. Greenberg wrote for Bleacher Report in 2013, he had more recently been able to stay off drugs, except for an occasional beer.In 2003 his daughter Marissa, 27, was killed by her boyfriend, Charles Reynolds. Vaziri said that he contemplated attacking Mr. Reynolds with a razor blade in court, Mr. Greenberg wrote, but that his family kept him from doing it. Mr. Reynolds was sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2016.In 2005 the Iron Sheik was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.Beginning in the early 2000s, the Sheik brought a less inhibited version of his character to Howard Stern’s radio show to rant about different wrestlers. He threatened to sodomize rivals like Hogan and used homophobic slurs to describe the Ultimate Warrior.In more recent years the Sheik’s diatribes appeared on social media. His managers often posted profanity-laced messages in all capital letters on a Twitter account that has nearly 650,000 followers. A recent one just said “HOGAN,” preceded by an expletive.But, the Sheik allowed in 2014, things were more civil when he met Hogan outside the ring.“Nobody talk bad about the past,” he said. “I get along with him.”Alain Delaquérière contributed research. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Jay Johnston, ‘Bob’s Burgers’ Actor, Is Arrested on Jan. 6 Charges

      by

      The actor was banned from the animated sitcom in 2021 after he was accused of participating in the Capitol riot.Jay Johnston, a comic actor known for his work on the animated sitcom “Bob’s Burgers,” was arrested in California on Wednesday and charged with felony obstruction of police officers during the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The actor was identified in police body camera footage pushing against officers and aiding other rioters at the Capitol, according to the F.B.I.Mr. Johnston, 54, was charged on four counts, including civil disorder and entering a restricted building. An F.B.I. affidavit states that images from closed-circuit television show Mr. Johnston using a shield stolen from the Capitol Police to join a group assault on officers defending a tunnel entrance to the building.Mr. Johnston’s name surfaced in connection with the riot in March 2021 when amateur sleuths said they recognized him in photographs shown in an F.B.I. call for tips on Twitter. Colleagues on the podcast “Harmontown” also tweeted that they recognized Mr. Johnston, who appeared in small roles on “Arrested Development” and “Anchorman,” among other comedies.“I’m no detective, but I do know Jay,” Cassandra Church, who worked on “Harmontown” with Mr. Johnston, wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted. “He said he was there. And that’s him in the picture. So…”The F.B.I. said three associates of Mr. Johnston’s identified him in the Jan. 6 photographs. One associate provided the F.B.I. with a text message in which Mr. Johnston acknowledged being at the Capitol on Jan. 6, stating: “The news presented it as an attack. It actually wasn’t. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed.”Mr. Johnston was also said to have assisted other rioters by pouring water over their eyes after they had been sprayed.The Daily Beast reported in December 2021 that Mr. Johnston had been banned from voicing his recurring character, Jimmy Pesto Sr., on the Fox show “Bob’s Burgers” after the Jan. 6 riot.More than 1,040 people have been charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors have indicated that there could be as many as another 1,000 people who might eventually face charges, according to people familiar with the matter.The owner of a Long Island funeral home, Peter G. Moloney, was also charged on Wednesday in the department’s investigation of the riot. He is accused of spraying an insecticide at police officers guarding the Capitol and attacking members of the news media.Last month, Richard Barnett, who was photographed with his boot on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the attack, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison after being found guilty in January on eight criminal offenses.Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, received the most severe penalty so far from criminal cases stemming from the Capitol attack. He was sentenced last month to 18 years in prison for his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges.Mr. Johnston has a long list of television and movie credits, mostly in comedic roles. He was a regular on the 1990s sketch comedy program “Mr. Show” with David Cross and Bob Odenkirk. He more recently appeared in an episode of “Better Call Saul,” starring Mr. Odenkirk.A lawyer for Mr. Johnston did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Alan Feuer More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      ‘Tucker on Twitter’ Is Equal Parts Fox News and Fox Mulder

      by

      The low-fi “Tucker on Twitter” finds the former prime-time host at the intersection of Fox News and Fox Mulder.Most of the time, it does not qualify as newsworthy to see a man in your social media feed staring into a camera, asking “What exactly happened on 9/11?” and demanding to know why the media isn’t digging for the truth about J.F.K.’s assassination. Usually, it’s just a sign that you should not have accepted so many friend requests from high school classmates you barely remember.But when that man was recently paid millions of dollars by Fox News to say much the same things on one of the most popular shows on cable TV, attention is paid. In Tuesday’s debut episode of “Tucker on Twitter,” the new home-brew show from Tucker Carlson, the ousted prime-time star’s brand of resentment, insinuation and dog-whistly mocking finally gets the guy-ranting-from-his-den visuals that suit it.There’s a touch of echo in the audio; there are wall hangings, wood paneling, a bit of woodsy green through a window. Carlson holds his own Teleprompter controller and wears a suit with a pocket square. The overall look is talk-show “Green Acres,” or Ron Swanson if he shaved and went to prep school.As a production, “Tucker on Twitter” looks less like a newscast than one of the improvised lockdown shows that late-night talk hosts recorded from home in the early Covid days of 2020. But in this case, Carlson’s quarantine is self-inflicted.Fox abruptly let him go in April, after the investigation in its now-settled litigation with the voting software company Dominion turned up a racist text message and misogynistic slurs from him, as well as statements disparaging Fox executives. It’s not clear whether streaming on Twitter violates Carlson’s contract with Fox, which lasts until early 2025.But commentators gotta commentate, and the time off in the woods has not mellowed Carlson. He gives the barest intro —“Hey, it’s Tucker Carlson!”— before giving a rundown of the dam explosion in Ukraine that would go down in the Kremlin like the smoothest vodka. “Any fair person would conclude that the Ukrainians probably blew it up,” he says, given that the dam, located in a region taken by Russia in an invasion, was “effectively Russian.”Carlson also called Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish president of Ukraine, “a persecutor of Christians” and described him as “shifty, dead-eyed” and “sweaty and ratlike.” For years, Carlson laundered far-right fringe rhetoric and bigotry on Fox, and there is no sign that, in the anything-goes regime of Elon Musk’s Twitter, the laundry is shutting down.Carlson’s rhetoric has not diminished, but his production has. In the 10-minute first episode, there are no guests, no produced segments, a handful of news-footage clips. It’s pure monologue, from the opening Ukraine comment to the offhand swipes at diversity and transgender women to a closing bit on a whistle-blower who contends that the U.S. government possesses material from extraterrestrial aircraft.It’s a Tucker Carlson show, in other words. A big question is whether Carlson can be what he once was without the Fox News platform and production resources.Fox has ideology, of course (which has cycled through different flavors of conservatism over the decades), but it also has an aesthetic. Its shows are produced to be glossy and urgent, to convey a sense of slick confidence. Fox News is designed to look like it is broadcasting from the top of the world; “Tucker on Twitter” looks not unlike something livestreamed after the apocalypse.Others — Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck — have failed to reclaim their peak influence after losing their Fox perches. Carlson could be different; Fox News has yet to recover in the prime-time ratings from his sudden departure.But Carlson, for all his anti-elite posturing, is wholly a creature of legacy TV, having hosted shows on Fox, CNN and MSNBC. He is a houseplant grown under corporate studio lights, even when they were installed in his rural Maine town for him to broadcast remotely to Fox.On the other hand, it’s possible that the pivot to low-fi Twitter is more of a match for the current incarnation of Carlson. Whether he is holding forth on Russia or immigrants or the Jan. 6 riot, he has one persistent meta-theme: The elites are controlling your information and telling you what you’re allowed to say. “Go ahead and talk about something that really matters and see what happens,” he says at one point, seeming to allude to his firing by Fox while casting himself as a free-speech martyr. “If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet. Trust us.”Within this rhetorical framework, it is not necessary to prove that aliens have been discovered on Earth or that Ukrainians blew up a Ukrainian dam. It is enough for Carlson to say They don’t want you to believe it, and the viewer can accept the idea for the sake of sticking it to them. They say you’re wrong, you’re crazy, you’re a racist. Well, what do they know?It is a premise made for social media, as many a red-pilled YouTuber and Facebook proselytizer has found. The premise of his appeal — that he is the one teller of truth, and you the one critical thinker, in a world of shepherds and sheep — dovetails with the idea of booting up your computer to seek out a man giving speeches from his den.It also dovetails with the interests of Twitter’s owner, Musk, who styles himself as a heterodox freethinker — whose heterodoxy happens to be expressed through reinstating right-wing trolls and hosting the Republican presidential campaign announcement of Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor.But since 2017, Carlson has made himself likely the most influential broadcaster in conservative politics by posturing as an outsider on the inside. However well he can monetize a Twitter audience, it’s another matter to retain as much political-cultural power as an outsider on the outside. Nor do we know if this is a real transformation or just a stopgap until Carlson is contractually free to go back on TV.Until then, the truth is out there, and so is Tucker Carlson — whether or not they are necessarily in the same place. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Is a TV Rarity With Familiar Drama

      by

      Netflix’s latest dating reality show hit, which wrapped up on Wednesday, broke ground by focusing exclusively on queer and nonbinary couples.The finale of Netflix’s latest dating show hit, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” arrived on Wednesday after weeks of partner swapping that amounted to a milestone in romantic reality television: The first of the genre’s marriage contests that focused exclusively on queer couples.Like its predecessor, “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” from last year, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” which premiered in May, follows couples who don’t agree about their future together (one wants to get engaged; the other is not ready). So they agree to split up and live with new partners for a few weeks in front of the cameras. After meeting, dating and committing to a “trial wife,” the original couples reunite to live together as married, also for a few weeks. Then, after eight episodes worth of soul-searching, they must decide whether to get engaged, end the relationship or leave with their “trial wife” — the “ultimatum” of the title.“I feel like we’re at a lesbian club, and all our exes are here,” a castmate named Tiff Der joked in the first episode, sitting by the compound’s firepit surrounded by Der’s partner-turned-ex (for the purposes of the show), Mildred Woody, and the eight other contestants they each went on short dates with that day.In the same scene, another contestant, Vanessa Papa, suggests the cast all have a “polyamorous orgy,” drawing head shakes and nervous laughter from the others. By that point, Papa was interested in both Lexi Goldberg and Rae Cheung-Sutton while her ex, Xander Boger, was hitting it off with someone else’s former partner nearby.Same-sex marriage became federally recognized eight years ago, and it’s taken that long for L.G.B.T.Q. people to get their own dating show focused on love and commitment — though a number of queer-inclusive reality shows have demonstrated an appetite for such series. In earlier such shows, like the bisexual-themed competition “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” (2007) and the all-pansexual season of MTV’s “Are You The One?” (2019), the focus was on the competition, not on lifelong commitment. In “Queer Love,” which wrapped up Wednesday with a final episode and reunion special, the only prize is the clarity gained from such an experiment, the first in which men are not potential partners.“The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On” hadn’t aired yet when the cast of the spinoff began filming, so the five couples who appeared in “Queer Love” had little sense of how the show would unfold. All they had to go on was the track record of the show’s production company, Kinetic Content, which is also behind the Netflix reality hit “Love is Blind,” as well as the long-running “Married at First Sight,” on Lifetime in recent years.In many ways, “Queer Love” is reminiscent of any other marriage reality show — their struggles and triumphs with their partners (trial and otherwise) are not unlike those experienced by “Love Is Blind” competitors after they emerge from their pods and pair off. Commitment angst and the allure of potential new partners are reliable generators of the interpersonal drama that reality producers crave, no matter the makeup of the couples involved.“It was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world,” said Mal Wright, left, with Yoly Rojas in “The Ultimatum: Queer Love.”Netflix
      Der and Woody had been in a breakup-makeup-breakup cycle for almost two years, Der said, when they were approached by a casting producer about participating in “Queer Love.”“I actually said no at first because I’m like, ‘Actually, we’re in a really bad spot right now, so I don’t think so, I’m sorry,’” Der said in an interview. “And then she goes, ‘No, actually that’s what we’re looking for.’”Goldberg said she was approached at just the right time in her relationship with her partner, Cheung-Sutton. “It was kind of this question of, do you have a relationship where one person is questioning or dragging their feet?” she said.As universal as relationship frustrations can be, “Queer Love” also captures the specific ways queer women and nonbinary people relate to one another — for example, spending time with one another’s exes, whether intentional or not, is common in such a small community. For straight viewers, the show serves as a kind of voyeuristic microcosm; for queer ones, it provides a more relatable analog to the messy behavior of heterosexual dating shows like “The Bachelor” or “Love Is Blind.”Cast members, who ranged in age from 25 to 42 when they filmed, said they were encouraged by the production’s general queer competency — several crew members on set were L.G.B.T.Q., including the director of photography — but some noted blind spots. Yoly Rojas, a first-generation Venezuelan immigrant, said she was excited to be “a brown Latina femme on television,” but she was disappointed that her partner, Mal Wright, was the only Black person in the cast.“I don’t think that’s a fair representation of the community,” Rojas said. “It just felt still a little bit whiter than what I would’ve liked.”Wright initially was concerned about being portrayed as an aggressor — a common TV fate for butch and more masculine-of-center women or nonbinary people. “I didn’t want to be portrayed in a way that wasn’t true to me,” Wright said.But after watching the full season, Wright, who uses they/them pronouns, felt reassured: “There was no angry trope that got attached to me,” they said. “So it was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world.”One of the show’s stranger moves — and probably its most controversial one — was its choice of host. Nick and Vanessa Lachey co-host both “Love is Blind” and “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” but for “Queer Love,” Netflix brought in the actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher, a star of its show “Sweet Magnolias.” When Garcia Swisher is revealed as the host in the first episode, the cast appears surprised. It is Papa who finally pops the question: “Are you queer?”“I just wanted to know,” Papa, a fan of Garcia Swisher’s recurring role on her favorite show, “Freaks and Geeks,” said in an interview. “But she’s not, which is also great because now you have this mix of a queer cast and then this religious married-to-a-man host, so it’s like two worlds converging.”Other cast members were confused by the choice.“It took me a minute to warm up with Joanna because I didn’t get it,” Rojas said. “There’s no correlation to anything gay or to anything queer — like, it made no sense. But she’s a really sweet person, as understanding as one can be as a straight woman. She did her best.”Chris Coelen, an executive producer of the show, said Garcia Swisher had the most important quality for a host: curiosity. “Is JoAnna queer?” he said. “No, she’s not. Does she need to be to do a good job on show? I don’t think so.”The show puzzled some cast members and viewers by hiring a straight host, JoAnna Garcia Swisher.NetflixViewers of the show called out the strangeness of the hosting choice on social media. But overall “Queer Love” has been well-received and highly memed — praised by writers and viewers for giving queer women and nonbinary people a chance to see their own relationships reflected on an enormous platform like Netflix.“It’s all pretty standard reality show stuff,” Emma Specter wrote in Vogue. “But I wonder what it would have meant for me to watch 10 queer people date, break up, cry, have fun and drink disgusting-looking cocktails out of weird chrome glasses on TV in high school, when there were approximately zero out queer people in my actual life.”For the “Queer Love” cast, their appearances on the show came with a feeling of responsibility to not embarrass communities that historically have been ignored or misrepresented on TV. Goldberg, the youngest castmate, said the weight of the contestants displaying themselves in such a public way was palpable from their first group gathering.“It was kind of this unspoken thing,” Goldberg said. “Not that the stakes were higher, but that the importance of being good representatives was something we should consider day in and day out.”“But it doesn’t mean we don’t get to have relationships and feel and cry and deal with problems the way they arise,” Goldberg continued. “It just meant we do have to remember that this is important, and that there will be a lot of people that watch this and that look to this as a sense of normalcy in queer relationships that maybe they just never knew before.”Coelen, the executive producer, hopes “Queer Love,” in both its relatability and specificity, “lowers barriers between people in some way.”“Because people are people,” he continued. “And, like the ‌cliché, love is love, you know?” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Anna Shay, Star of Netflix’s ‘Bling Empire,’ Dies at 62

      by

      A Los Angeles socialite and heiress to a defense contractor, she lived most of her life in private before joining a reality show.Anna Shay, an heiress and Los Angeles socialite who became a breakout star of the Netflix reality show “Bling Empire,” has died. She was 62.Her family confirmed her death to The Associated Press in a statement, which said the cause was a stroke. It was not immediately clear when or where she died.“It saddens our hearts to announce that Anna Shay, a loving mother, grandmother, charismatic star, and our brightest ray of sunshine, has passed away,” said the statement provided to The A.P. “Anna taught us many life lessons on how not to take life too seriously and to enjoy the finer things. Her impact on our lives will be forever missed but never forgotten.”“Bling Empire,” which ran for three seasons on Netflix starting in 2021, centered on wealthy Asian and Asian American fun seekers in Los Angeles and was billed as the real version of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians.” Ms. Shay appeared in 22 episodes, according to the Internet Movie Database.Jeff Jenkins, who produced the show and other reality hits like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” praised Ms. Shay’s performance in an interview with Town & Country magazine in 2021.“I consider it a personal gift that she agreed to participate,” he said. “But it’s also a gift to everybody watching.”Ms. Shay’s presence on the show was that of a sometimes intimidating, but well-loved matriarch. “Anna is nice to people,” Guy Tang, another cast member, said in one episode, “but you cross her line, she’s going to cut you.”Born in Japan, Ms. Shay was the daughter of Ai Oizumi Shay, who died in 2015, and Edward Albert Shay, who died in 1995. Her parents moved the family to Los Angeles from Tokyo in 1968, according to several news reports.Her father founded the defense contractor Pacific Architects and Engineers, which she and her brother Allen Shay sold to Lockheed Martin in 2006 for an estimated $700 million.Ms. Shay said on the show that she had been married and divorced four times.“I always meet people and then we become friends and that’s it,” Ms. Shay said, adding that all four spouses brought adventure to her life. (She met one of them when she was learning to fly helicopters, she said). Getting ready for a blind date on “Bling Empire,” she said she was open to marrying a fifth time. Ms. Shay never publicly shared her spouses’ identities.She is survived by a son, Kenny Kemp. A full list of survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Shay in a scene from “Bling Empire,” which ran on Netflix for three seasons.Netflix/Netflix, via Associated PressAfter the news of Ms. Shay’s death, her co-stars and other friends expressed their grief and posted tributes on social media.“We spent most of the pandemic together, slaying it on Rodeo Dr., grocery shopping, making Japanese plum wine and doing silly things,” Kane Lim, a fellow cast member who said he forged an off-camera friendship with Ms. Shay, wrote on Instagram.“You had a nonchalance about you that was mesmerizing,” he wrote. “I was lucky to get to know the real you.”She was known on “Bling Empire” for her personal style, a love for cooking and cutting zingers. In her first scene, she is seen sledgehammering a wall in her closet while wearing a red ball gown and a sparkling diamond necklace. When a friend asked what she was doing, she dryly answered, “I’m fixing my closet.”Ms. Shay was always surrounded by a security detail, including at her vast estate in Beverly Hills, something she said she had been used to from an early age as a member of a wealthy family.“My father, he was extremely protective as I was growing up,” Ms. Shay said on the show.Even though she spent much of her final years in front of cameras, she remained somewhat of a mystery. “Anna Shay can reach you, but you can’t reach Anna Shay,” Kelly Mi Li, another “Bling Empire” star, said on a podcast last year.“She was something special,” Pep Williams, an art photographer in Los Angeles, wrote on Facebook. “We used to race Ferraris and Lamborghinis from Beverly Hills to Palm Springs. So many good times just hanging out at the house talking about life, cars, and photography.”This spring, Netflix canceled “Bling Empire” as well as its spinoff, “Bling Empire: New York.”Mostly, Ms. Shay exuded a sense of confidence among the gossip and drama that the reality show inspires. “I don’t feel this need to compete,” she said in one episode. “I find it fiercely annoying.” More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Burden of Proof’ and the Tony Awards

      by

      A brother investigates his sister’s 1987 disappearance in a new true crime series from HBO, and the 76th Annual Tony Awards air live on CBS.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, June 5-11. Details and times are subject to change.MondayFrom left, Adam Rippon, Richard Sherman and Ariel Winter in “Stars on Mars.”Brook Rushton/FOXSTARS ON MARS 8 p.m. on FOX. In this new competition series hosted by the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 12 celebrities live 24/7 in a “space station” that simulates life on Mars. The “celebronauts,” who include the comedian Natasha Leggero, the wrestler Ronda Rousey and the “Modern Family” star Ariel Winter, will compete against one another in a series of “missions,” and vote to eliminate one of their crew members at the end of each week.Lexi Underwood, left, and Sadie Stanley in “Cruel Summer.”Justine Yeung/FreeformCRUEL SUMMER 9 p.m. on Freeform. Told through three different timelines, the second season of this drama anthology series follows the friendship among the teenagers Isabella (Lexi Underwood), Megan (Sadie Stanley) and Luke (Griffin Gluck) as their relationships evolve, and they become embroiled in a mystery that profoundly affects all three of their lives. The series “takes a lot of its cues from prestige crime dramas, so its performances are terrific and its central mysteries appropriately tantalizing,” the New York Times TV critic Margaret Lyons wrote.Tuesday30 FOR 30: THE LUCKIEST GUY IN THE WORLD 8 p.m. on ESPN. Directed by Steve James (“Hoop Dreams,” “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”), this four-part documentary series about the basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton is the latest installment in ESPN’s Peabody- and Emmy-winning series, “30 for 30,” which explores the role of sports in society and culture. Through commentary from Walton, his family and a number of basketball stars, the episodes tell the story of Walton’s life, following him from antiwar protests at U.C.L.A. to an N.B.A. career in Portland, Ore., and Boston, while also exploring Walton’s struggles with his mental and physical health.BURDEN OF PROOF 9 p.m. on HBO. Shot over the course of seven years, this four-part true crime docuseries follows Stephen Pandos as he pursues his own investigation into the disappearance of his sister, Jennifer, who went missing from their family home in 1987 at age 15. Their parents told everyone she ran away. The series features Jennifer’s journal entries and letters, police documentation and interviews with family and friends to paint a picture of what may have happened the night of Jennifer’s disappearance. As missing evidence is uncovered and Stephen’s parents fail lie detector tests, he becomes increasingly convinced of their culpability.WednesdayGlenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”Patrick McElhenney/FXIT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA 10 p.m. on FXX. The longest-running live-action comedy series in American TV history is back for its 16th season — and so are Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Charlie (Charlie Day), Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Frank (Danny DeVito), the potty-mouthed protagonists who run Paddy’s Pub in Philadelphia. They’re up to new high jinks, as this season finds Dennis and Mac investing in inflatable furniture, Frank shooting Dennis and Dee, and Mac and Charlie going on a road trip with their mothers in order to get their inheritances. The series “isn’t for everyone,” writes Austin Considine in an episode guide to the show, as there is little redemption or character growth. But for those willing to give it a chance, “Sunny” features a “brilliant ensemble of self-centered neurotics who somehow manage to be likable, despite their best efforts.”ThursdayALONE 9 p.m. on History. The 10th season of this popular survival show takes place in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Ten survivalists are separated and scattered across the wilderness to see who can endure living in the harsh climate the longest. There are no camera crews or outside aid, and each contestant is given only 10 items of their choice, enough camera gear to self-document their experiences and a radio for emergencies. The last person standing wins $500,000.FridayWALK THE LINE (2005) 6:25 p.m. on HBO. Based on two autobiographies by the singer-songwriter Johnny Cash — “Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words,” published in 1975, and “Cash: The Autobiography,” published in 1997 — this Academy Award-nominated biopic tells the story of Cash’s ascent in the music scene. With Joaquin Phoenix playing Cash, the film begins with his abusive childhood on a cotton farm in Arkansas, and follows him as he joins the Air Force, gets married and becomes a country music star, with a large portion of the film devoted to his romance with the singer June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) and his drug addiction. “The sheer range of material is staggering,” A.O. Scott wrote of Cash’s music in his review for The Times, adding that “there is no way a feature-length movie could do justice to such bounty, and ‘Walk the Line’ settles for the minimum.” Yet, Scott wrote, the film’s personal treatment of Cash and his rise “remind us why we should care about this guy in the first place.”SaturdayKINGS ROW (1942) 3:45 p.m. on TCM. This Oscar-nominated film, based on the 1940 novel of the same name by Henry Bellamann, tells the stories of five friends from the small Midwestern town of Kings Row. The film follows them as they transition from childhood to adulthood at the turn of the 20th century, and face a series of setbacks and challenges in pursuit of the lives they want. Featuring Ronald Reagan in one of the lead roles, the film is just as “gloomy and ponderous” as the book, Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The Times, adding that the story centers on “several sordid and perverse folk.” Ultimately, Crowther wrote, “there are moments of pathos in ‘Kings Row,’ and occasionally it strikes a sharp nostalgic note,” but overall, “it just shows a lot of people feeling bad.”SundayTHE 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. The annual awards ceremony meant to honor Broadway plays and musicals will take place this year at the United Palace, a large theater in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Ariana DeBose, the Academy Award and Golden Globe winner who was nominated for a Tony in 2018, will host the ceremony for the second time in a row. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Idol’: The Weeknd, Sam Levinson and Lily Rose-Depp on Their Graphic Pop Drama

      by

      In an interview, the Weeknd, Sam Levinson and Lily Rose-Depp discussed their controversial new HBO drama. “Running headfirst into that fire is what thrills us all,” Levinson said.From left, Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. the Weeknd), Sam Levinson and Lily-Rose Depp during filming of “The Idol.” The series, premiering Sunday on HBO, has already been the subject of scathing reports and reviews.Eddy Chen/HBOLast month, the director Sam Levinson and his stars, Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. the Weeknd) and Lily-Rose Depp, walked into the Lumière Theater at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the first two episodes of their show, “The Idol,” to a standing ovation. The lights hadn’t yet dimmed, but celebrity fuels Cannes, where ovations are cheap. By the time the screening was over, the amped-up crowd was on its feet again and critics were racing out to fire off some of the most scathing reviews to emerge from this year’s event, with pans studded with barbs like “regressive,” “chauvinistic,” “skin-crawling” and “grim disaster.”“The Idol” centers on a chart-busting pop star, Jocelyn (Depp), who, in the wake of a nervous breakdown, is prepping for a comeback. Surrounded by handlers — the cast includes Hank Azaria, Troye Sivan, Jane Adams, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and the horror-film impresario Eli Roth — Jocelyn has made a lot of money for a lot of self-interested people. One night at a Los Angeles dance club, she meets Tedros (Tesfaye), a smooth-talking enigma with a rattail. Before long, she has invited him back to her mansion and they’re grinding in the shadows, and a mystery has taken root: What in the world is she doing with this guy?Created by Levinson, Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, “The Idol,” which premieres on Sunday, was already a heat-seeking target by the time it played at Cannes. In April 2022, word hit that its original director, Amy Seimetz, had left the show amid a creative overhaul. For whatever reason, the brain trust at HBO decided to pump up the show’s notoriety in a teaser, released three months later, that trumpeted Levinson and Tesfaye as “the sick & twisted minds” behind “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood.” But unwanted attention arrived this past March in a damning Rolling Stone article that, among other rebukes, accused Levinson’s version of being “a rape fantasy.” That teaser has since disappeared from HBO’s YouTube channel.Levinson, Tesfaye and other “Idol” collaborators have vigorously defended the show and its creators. “The process on the set was unbelievably creative,” Azaria said at a news conference a day after the Cannes premiere, as Adams nodded along. “I’ve been on many, many a dysfunctional set, believe me,” Azaria continued. “This was the exact opposite.”For his part, Levinson, who is best known for “Euphoria,” yet another HBO show about a beautiful young woman in crisis, said at the news conference that the specifics in the article felt “completely foreign.” But he also seemed to welcome the controversy.“When my wife read me the article,” he explained, “I looked at her and I just said, ‘I think that we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.’”On the day after the “Idol” news conference, I met with Levinson, Tesfaye and Depp — whose father, Johnny Depp, was also at the festival this year — for a sit-down at the Carlton Cannes, one of the grand hotels that faces the Mediterranean in this rarefied resort city. We talked about the show while tucked into a private patio corner, just out of earshot of nervously hovering publicists and other minders. During our chat, Levinson and his two colleagues alluded to the negative reviews, but if they were upset by them, they didn’t show or share it.“I’m still spinning from it,” Levinson said of the premiere. “It was maybe the most surreal moment I’ve had — I don’t really leave my house much.” These are edited excerpts from the interview.Can we talk about the genesis of “The Idol”?SAM LEVINSON Abel and I have known each other for quite a few years, and we’ve always wanted to work together. We got on a Zoom because I’d heard he has this project. The genesis was he said, “Look, if I wanted to start a cult, I could. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing.”ABEL TESFAYE I actually don’t remember saying that [laughs]. I think I was just trying to say anything to finally work with you. I’ve always wanted to work with Sam; we’ve been friends forever. It was more about celebrity culture and how much power they have.How much power they have?TESFAYE It’s probably hard to believe, but I can’t see myself in that way. I never have. Even when I move around with security, it feels so weird because I don’t ever want to be seen. I feel like I have to be seen — fans want to see who they listen to, who they love. But for me, celebrity culture was always fascinating, and how much power they have on their fans.Depp plays a pop star named Jocelyn who comes under the sway of an enigmatic man named Tedros, played by Tesfaye.Eddy Chen/HBOLily, you grew up in a famous family, but it was fame by proxy.LILY-ROSE DEPP I’ve experienced it by proxy since birth. That’s simultaneously a strange thing and also not strange at all, because I don’t know anything different. My childhood looks nothing like Jocelyn’s, a character who has been working from a young age, and who was a child performer and had a mother who was pushing her. My childhood was never going to be “normal,” but they gave us the best sense of normalcy that we could have.Did you watch any of the Britney Spears documentaries?TESFAYE It’s not about Britney at all, but how could we not pull inspiration from Britney, from Madonna, from every pop star that’s gone through any kind of serious pain? I’ve always called Lily one of the creators of the show, because I couldn’t write Jocelyn until we knew who was going to play her. Once Lily got the role, she and Sam worked together on creating the character. What I could provide was the music industry around her — management, labels, touring, everything that I know.DEPP I was so nervous about the musical aspect. It’s not what I do and this character has been doing this her entire life. I remember the first time that I had to sing in front of Abel, I was, like, I’m going to blow my brains out. Little by little, we got to know each other more and got comfortable with each other.LEVINSON We basically moved into Abel’s house, which was our shooting location. We knew that we were going to shoot the entire show in this one place, so we turned it into a live set.Abel, obviously performing for a live audience is different from performing in a music video, and this is very different.TESFAYE I never wrote Tedros for myself; it was Sam who planted the idea. I just focused on being Tedros and living as the character and spending all my time with Sam and listening and allowing him to just be my teacher. Tedros is such a dark, complicated, scary, pathetic human — I had to just distance myself from who I am. And it’s scary, you know, it’s a big risk.“Tedros is such a dark, complicated, scary, pathetic human,” Tesfaye said of his character.Eddy Chen/HBOSo far, the only pathetic thing about him is his hair.TESFAYE We made sure of it. He’s pathetic. It’s funny, we were in the theater watching Tedros and there are moments where only us three were laughing. People have no idea ——LEVINSON —— where it goes. The moment that Tedros clicked for me and, I think, for Abel was, imagine you have all of this ambition, all of this drive, this ability to tell a story through music. But none of the talent. So you have to find a puppet, someone to work through. I also think part of what was fascinating is that he’s rolling up to this mansion and it’s a world that he’s never been invited into. She opens this door ——TESFAYE —— like Dracula, inviting him in.In the first episode there’s a lot of comedy about the intimacy coordinator who doesn’t want Jocelyn to expose part of her body. What is agency for someone brought up in a bubble?DEPP I totally respect and love intimacy coordinators. I think they belong on sets, and that it’s important to make everybody feel safe. I’m very comfortable saying, “I’m fine to do this or not this,” but some people aren’t. At the same time, you have to have this nudity rider, it has to be submitted in advance and it has to be signed by this person and the lawyer. It becomes this very structured legal thing when the purpose is to give freedom and safety to the person who may or may not be doing nudity. You literally can’t make a decision about your own body.“I think that they are two twisted psychopaths who love each other,” Depp said. “She’s going to use him, too.”Eddy Chen/HBOIs Jocelyn her own person? She’s surrounded by this apparatus. Abel, is the show inspired by your life in terms of wanting to do what you want to do?TESFAYE There have been moments where I’ve felt like it is me-against-them. But because of my situation — I own my masters — I’m very fortunate. But what if I didn’t? They would automatically win: 99.99999 percent of pop stars don’t have that and are in Jocelyn’s position. So it’s not autobiographical; it’s like an alternate reality.LEVINSON That’s part of what we wanted to set up. Here is this machine and we’re not sure how complicit she is. We see how it grinds her down. But that moment of agency is when they’re in bed and Tedros says, “Maybe I should move in for work purposes.” You see this slight smile on her face. That’s her going, I’ve got him. He’s hooked.DEPP It’s going to be easy for the audience to immediately think, Oh my God, he’s using her. I think that they are two twisted psychopaths who love each other. She’s going to use him, too.TESFAYE Everything is very intentional. We knew that the reaction was going to be the way it is because of those two episodes.Much of the early talk surrounding the show has been about the amount of nudity. Lily, were you surprised by how your body was shown?DEPP No, honestly. Her bareness, physically and emotionally, was a big part of the discussions that we all had. Those were decisions I was completely involved in. There are many women who have felt exploited by the nudity they’ve done and have thought, I didn’t feel great about that. But I’m comfortable performing in that way, I enjoy it. It informed the character. In the conversation around the risqué aspects, there’s the implication that it’s something being consistently imposed upon women. Obviously, that has been true a lot historically.LEVINSON It also plays into that feeling that the audience has: Oh, she’s a victim. She has to be a victim. I believe people will underestimate Jocelyn as a character because of how exposed she is.I wondered about all the nudity, and about having a Black man be the villain.LEVINSON Playing into those stereotypes in the first couple of episodes is important for the journey and the arc and the emotional experience. It has a way of disorienting us because of our knowledge of who we are, and what has happened in the world. I think the audience will slowly begin to see who the true villain of the piece is.TESFAYE We wanted to make a fun show, as well. It’s a thriller. There are a lot of topics, but it’s really important that it’s entertaining as well.Do you worry about how the show will be received, given that larger discussions about race, gender and representation are so fraught right now?LEVINSON That’s what makes it exciting, that these discussions are fraught. I think running headfirst into that fire is what thrills us all.TESFAYE Someone’s got to do it. No one’s really doing it now. They just need to see the whole show.DEPP We always knew that we were going to make something that was going to be provocative and perhaps not for everyone. That was a draw for all of us. I don’t think any of us were interested in making anything that was going to be, you know, fun for the whole family.TESFAYE When I first started making music, it was the exact same thing. It was provocative, and I knew it was going to be tough for people. And a lot of people didn’t like it. Not to compare it, but I feel that this is kind of like that again. This is not going to be for everybody, and that’s fine. We’re not politicians. More