We’ve reached the finale!!!
Now that the Jingle Bells have tolled, our Christmas trees brighten our days and nights till year’s end (unless you have cats !!) We’ve been tied to our screens – more so because Ol’ Rona forced us to digitalize the workplace – but as per usual for humanity, there are those serials that kept us especially glued. If you, like me, use the watch-an-episode-reward cycle, they kept us sane and productive, allowing for much-desired shifts in focus: relief, relaxation. Mostly, they thoroughly entertained. What made you go back for more? Who took you on what ride exactly??
Escapism: What Are We Watching?
A whiff at the wires – RottenTomatoes.com, Vulture.com, Empireonline.com, PopBuzz.com – tells one the popular swarms and waves of chrono 2020, individual writer’s choices that befit the time capsule. Many tales, many tellers, just as many reviews, countless interpretations, like sand through the hourglass… LMAO! The politics of gazing/object selection aside, this matrix is fundamental to all: how we feel, what we feel, at the intersection of what we want, and what time it is. Whether it’s genre – Touched By An Angel, or Charmed – memorable characters, like The Simpsons, Dawson’s Creek, or the boat I missed, Friends, its clever sequence of events, as in Desperate Housewives, Law And Order, or still-goddamn-running Survivor, or triple threats (great music, script and acting), think Queer As Folk, Suits, or Game Of Thrones before season 8: you know what reels you in, I know what thrills me, it’s beyond tags like ‘adventure’, ‘rom-com, ‘murder-mystery’, and too complex for any one service provider to always satisfy. Those of us alive today, invest enough screentime to know intimately, our personal appetites for entertainment, and how it changes after watching a newfound favourite. We can have it our way. We aren’t bound by the programming schedules. We don’t need to be sold soap, cigarettes, nor conformity. We want a good time, fun, bubbles, essential elements too, if writers would. There’s a definitive word for it: enthral!
This Top Five gave me near-everything I wanted in this blur of a year; they made enforced indoor camping pleasurable. We shall see in good time whether they make it into other folk’s fav lists, maybe record books… Shows that didn’t make selection here, sorry not sorry, you didn’t grab me in time, but maybe later hey (I see you, Queen’s Gambit).
2020’s Champions Of The Box
You may have forgotten, but RuPaul’s DRAG Race Season 12 got the ball rolling in February. After a mild scandal, and the COVID field-change, by May, the first-ever virtual Lip-Sync Showdown For The Crown gave us the latest season queen, Jaida Essence Hall. RuCo’s empire fired off another mainstay, DRAG Race All Stars Season 5 in June, and it was a Hell Yeah!!! A fantastic season of great DRAG, DRAMA, and Rusical comedy, Shea Coulee emerged the well-fucking-deserved winner. By this writing, you have to say RUPAUL’S DRAG Race because two new series kicked off, wrapped up, and gave us the goods henny. Canada’s DRAG Race crowned “What’s My Name?” PRIYANKA! DRAG Race Holland; statuesque beauty Envy Peru. That’s five international races, four reigning Queens of Colour (Miss Pepper LaBeija would be ecstatic). The oven is hot and delicious things ready to pop: DRAG Race UK Season 2 ANND 3 officially expected in 2021, with whispers of a coming DRAG Race Spain! A confirmed champion of the box, RuPaul’s flagship has 19 Emmy Awards; the most in Emmy-history for a reality series.
We’ve been doing it since the dawn of our species. There are so many movies about it, and there won’t ever not be more. So, infinity. How could this be?? How could a subject so done, possibly overdone, so unrevolutionary, be refreshed, and actually, unexpectedly knock your socks off?!
Sex Education (2019-2020) is the dark horse, running strong past its second season. I grew up knowing British history and custom viscerally, later, a more benevolent export of comedy and drama: Mr Bean, Faulty Towers, the titillating Footballers’ Wives, and of course, infamous Little Britain. I was exposed to real-time culture on holiday in the Queendom itself. I could not be surprised, I thought. I still can’t believe that I am! Teenage neurotic Otis (Asa Butterfield), his flamboyant best-friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), and Maeve (Emma Mackey) a great modern-day shrew (very Ten Things I Hate About You) play out high-school misadventures running a secret, for-profit sex therapy clinic. A litany of well-placed characters, ripe with emotional layers and sumptuous peaks and valleys, it’s not only the leads who surprise and delight. I can’t tell you it’s revolutionary material: it’s just so DAMN GOOD played out, a familiar matrix of colliding values, stiff collars and randy bloomers mixed in at Moordale Secondary, but on my honour as a Stark, you’ve never seen humour, sex, innocence, and deviancy brought together so deftly. It’s a definite Again-And-Again’er!
Chernobyl (2019) – the calamity of ‘86. World leaders swore to never again make the mistake. And not only turned it around, we’ve made good lemonade from a horrible story. A noticeably British cast and creation very unlike the aforementioned, it hides this masterfully among the Russian embellishments. I’m sold. This part-fantasy, part-reality miniseries has incredible tempo. I binged till the end, and watched it again within the month: mesmerized by the clusterfuckery of Soviet posturing, despite cringing in my belly, many times quietly screaming at the screen. I found myself, outside of episodes, remarking on the fictional ignorance, misunderstandings, lamenting the how–stupid–can–you–be-’s relative to this or that critical detail pre-empting nuclear fall-out. I’m a BIG fan of backstories, supplementary materials, gorging on Netflix’s array of Cuban, British and Russian doccies. Even though there is no more story to be told here, the anthropologist in me lived for this fiction!
Hollywood (2020), oh Hollywood… ever since I saw The Holiday (2006), I’ve been interested in the story of Tinseltown. Since Jim Parsons is on cast, I was already all ears in. This fantastical remake is – cute. I went willingly along its strange story paths to get as much of Dylan McDermott, Holland Taylor, and Patti LuPone as I could. I was not ever disappointed with newcomers Jeremy Pope, David Corenswet, Jake Picking and Laura Harrier. Though, it did not set all the bells ringing; even if it had the BEST happy ending for Rock and Archie. Still, I couldn’t stop watching! And the ulcerous pit in my stomach was real, as I realized the sexual assault and predation that was the mix of discovery and celebrity in that day and age. Golden, right? I’m eager to see what else comes off the reel if it goes further.
Where I come from, music, theatre, and poetry are ancient arts. The arrival of the radio, TV, and most assuredly the daytime soapie, allowed for an explosion of variety and rapid advancement, a nationwide recognition of the best blood of our bones. The harvests since have been bountiful: Egoli, Generations, Isidingo, and 7de Laan are acknowledged as national pastime, as post-colony, generations create community through talent and offering, a recognition of that which is born from and through us. Films you may not know, Izulu Lami, Yesterday, Jerusalema, you should get on them, and then there’s blockbusters District 9 and Elysium. Netflix was the natural next frontier.
I was fresh from a latest DRAG Race, can’t remember which, but the bar set quite high, whilst I casually sought something to occupy that free-time series-slot. Blood And Water (2020) caught my eye on the Netflix homepage. And I thought, let’s click Play.
OHH BOY, I’m glad I did!!!
Besides ancestral pride gushing through my veins, besides the STUNNING city of Cape Town scenes, full glamour, pomp and a bit of edge, the plot feels fresh, if not completely original as local family-time/evening dramas go. The long and short: Puleng Khumalo (Ama Qamata) grieves for her family’s lost unity and warmth: her older sister was kidnapped as a baby, and that mystery haunts their home perennially (it also involves her father in some inexplicable way?!) Struck by familiarity to a random acquaintance Fikile Bhele, Puleng orchestrates a down-low, and sometimes too up-close investigation of her family, guarded by matriarch Nwabisa Bhele, veteran of the screens here, the fierce Xolile Tshabalala. Khosi Ngema, as suspect-sister Fikile, and Thabang Molaba, as her best mate/family-friend Karabo Molapo, both befriend Puleng at school complicating EVERYTHING, while Dillon Windvogel, as Wade Daniels, her steady best mate is falling in love with her. It’s nail-biting, as we strain for every rumour and follow every lead. What will the Molaba’s and Bhele’s do with this fast-coming hurricane? Was there a paid-for abduction-and-adoption? What is Papa Khumalo guilty of? What will Fiks do with Puleng’s suspicions?! Season 2 cannot come fast enough!!!
Satisfaction Has Been Guaranteed
I end this year on an authentic high note! There are legions of queer youth who do not have the emotional memory that I have, instead through social media, doccies and primetime viewing, they awaken to a tapestry of LGBTQ heritage within human history. I celebrate that! This was the year Wentworth Miller and Elliott Page Came Out for all of us, the era of Pose, the beginning of grand things to come, because creative doors have been thrown open. I suppose, sentiment got me writing this, as I bask in the successes of South African culture and idealism, People Of Colour, and queer-and-trans representation.
The minutes are flying by now, it’s coming time to call the whole thing … I hear excited chatter in the backgrounds – smell fire burning (before, I’m sure, sizzling meat draws me in!) WhatsApp Voice Notes are starting to flow in from Macau, Vietnam and Georgia, where my besties find themselves quarantined.
Happy New Year’s Eve people!!!
~ The End ~
References:
1. Pop-Culture Nativity Scene creator: @kevinjzak
2. Nolfi, J. (2021). “RuPaul’s Drag Race is now the Emmy’s most awarded competition in history”. Entertainment Weekly (webpage). www.ew.com/awards/emmys/rupauls-drag-race-emmys-most-awarded-reality-competition. Accessed: 15 December 2020.
*Top 5 Frames by vEE
3. RuPaul’s DRAG Race feature pic from @RuPaulsDragRace
4. Envy Peru feature pic from @PeruEnvy
5. Sex Education feature pic from TVGuide.com
6. Laura Harrier feature pic from @hollywoodnetflx
7. Blood And Water feature pic from bellanaija.com