Here's the schedule for repeat broadcasts of "Eyewitness" the new series from USA . . .
James Paxton (as Lukas Waldenbeck) and Tyler Young (as Philip Shea)
http://www.advocate.com/current-issue/2016/10/14/illicit-gay-romance-spark-ignites-tvs-best-new-show
An Illicit Gay Romance Is the
Spark That Ignites TV's Best New Show
OCTOBER 14 2016 5:16 AM
EDT
In a little over a month last
spring, three TV series on the CW Network killed off their queer female characters: Jane the Virgin, The Vampire Diaries, and The
100. There were more than half a dozen others in 2016, including AMC’s The
Walking Dead and Syfy’s The
Magicians. Killing off LGBT characters is a long-standing
tradition on TV (and in film), as are the often senseless deaths of characters
of color. (Just ask any horror-film aficionado exactly how long the black
characters last; it’s rarely past the first few scenes.)
TV showrunners and writers have treated
LGBT characters as disposable for years now, but this year, the killing off of
Lexa on The 100 (just as she and Clarke finally consummated
their love) set off a firestorm of reprisals, protest, and a tiny bit of
recalcitrance from the writer.AutoStraddle used the
death as an occasion to release a comprehensive list of the 162 out lesbian or
bisexual characters who have been killed off on TV, along with how they died.
That list didn’t include what they called “victim of the week” types of roles
(which is already where most of the trans characters in TV have historically
landed) or “patient of the week roles” (à la House and ER).
And, of course, the list focused only on women.
But men, and teenage boys, are
certainly no less susceptible to TV’s “bury your gays” trope, even if it’s used
less frequently now than it was 20 years ago. That’s one of the reasons I
white-knuckled the first several episodes of what should be considered one of
this winter’s greatest new TV series, Eyewitness, on USA Network.
A 10-episode anthology, Eyewitness
introduces us in the very first scenes to two teenage boys, Philip and Lukas,
who accidentally witness a triple homicide while fooling around in what they had
assumed was an abandoned cabin in the woods. Lukas (played with full angst by
Bill Paxton’s son James) is the classic jock, a popular kid with a hot
girlfriend and a burgeoning motocross career. Philip (played expertly by Tyler
Young, whom you might know from Gus Van Sant’s miniseries When We
Rise) is a gay foster kid with a — very fairly portrayed — bio mom in
recovery; a foster father (Gil Bellows) who takes on what we’ve generally
thought of as the “mothering” role; and a tough, discerning foster mom, Helen,
who happens to be the town sheriff.
As the sheriff, Julianne Nicholson
(pictued above, best known for Law & Order: Criminal Intent) subverts
the role of women on TV in a way few actresses have ever been allowed. Even the
badass women who are so legendary they shape TV canon must be attractive and
sexually available while they do their jobs (imagine Olivia on Law &
Order: SVU, for example). Nicholson completely subverts the male gaze:
She’s rarely out of the uniform that flattens her chest and essentially neuters
her, with her hair pulled under a baseball cap, makeup that looks as if she’s
wearing none, freckles for days. Her communication is sparse, her role with her
foster son more traditionally paternal than maternal, and her immense power —
not her tits — is the first thing you see when she’s onscreen.
There’s reason for that, says creator,
writer, and executive producer Adi Hasak, who adapted the series from the
critically acclaimed Norwegian crime thriller Øyevitne.
“Too often women are depicted primarily
through their sexuality, so it was incredibly important to me that we do a
character study of Helen as a multidimensional woman,” Hasak says. “My goal was
to go much deeper than her sexuality and delve into her marriage, her demons,
and her ongoing struggle of being a working woman in a man’s world — into her
humanity.”
As creator and executive producer of the
NBC drama Shades of Blue, which stars Jennifer Lopez,
Hasak has already created tough and nuanced female characters, but by utilizing
a gay in-house director, Scott Peters (who is also a producer and has a long,
storied TV career) and havingTwilight director Catherine Hardwicke (whom Hasak
calls “the most powerful female director in Hollywood”) direct the first two
episodes, he ensured that the final result is a thriller that manages to keep
you guessing and questioning your assumptions about gender and sexual
orientation from a uniquely feminist perspective.
He says the effect was “very
intentional.”
“From a young age, I’ve been surrounded
by powerful, strong-willed women, and I am still, both at work and at home,”
says Hasak. “It was only natural that once I had the ability to generate my own
material, I gravitated toward strong female characters. That’s the case with
Jennifer Lopez’s corrupt detective character in Shades of
Blue. And it’s just as much the case with Julianne Nicholson’s character
in Eyewitness, which I consider a revisionist
feminist western.”
It’s easy to see what he means. Set in
Tivoli, New York (the real-life version has a population of about 1,100), the
show succeeds at making even LGBT viewers question our assumptions about women
and gays and their place in the world. A foster kid who is queer is rarely
portrayed onscreen; nor are boys fumbling for ecstasy and falling in love in
rural America. Part of the suspense of the show isn’t about whether the murderer
will catch the boys or whether a female cop of a certain age could actually
juggle a career and family, but rather whether these closeted teens would be
outed — or worse — in what we all assume is just some hick town. Even I, a
product of a small rural town and a former foster mom, was afraid for the boys
throughout.
“The moment I saw the original Norwegian
version of Eyewitness, I was taken by the multiple
story lines — of the two gay teens who witness a murder, and a female sheriff of
a certain age struggling with career and family, and seeing her investigation of
the murder as an opportunity to add some meaning and purpose in her life,” Hasak
tells me. “I also felt that from a psychological point of view, the thriller
story line complemented the anxiety that one of the teens was having about
coming out, as well as the sheriff’s anxiety over her own search for identity.
In that sense, both the boys’ and sheriff’s stories were extremely
complementary, each searching for meaning and a clear definition of their
identity. And it’s specifically these complementary stories that set the show
apart from the usual thriller, giving me an opportunity to create the kind of
character-driven series I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”
This kind of show could not have existed
on TV just a few years ago. Not a single network would have run this show a
decade ago, and yet, Hasak says, “As for the network and studio, I can’t
emphasize how important this narrative is to them. They’ve done nothing but
encourage me to dramatize the story line of these two boys in an honest
way.”
And portraying teenage boys falling in
love involves sex. Gay sex. That may turn off some viewers, but they’ll be
missing a damn fine series that has a lot to say but never hits you over the
head with moralizing.
There’s another pivotal woman on this
series: Kamilah (played by Tattiawna Jones), an FBI agent with some baggage of
her own. There’s a subversive cat-and-mouse between the sheriff and the agent,
and trust me — online shippers will have a field day pairing these two women up,
their underlying tension and attraction tantalizing. (Yes, both women have
relationships with men, but that doesn’t eliminate them from being bisexual.)
But even without it, the tenderness and touch between them at one point shows
something else we rarely see on TV: deep, abiding female friendship.
For fans of TV criticism, Eyewitness passes not just the Bechdel test but also
the Mako Mori test, the Sphinx test (all measures of female characters whose
story lines are not dependent on male characters), and the Vito Russo test (a
queer character who “matters,” with real-life qualities apart from queerness);
it has at least two non-white characters in the primary cast.
But one gets the sense that Hasak and his
team weren’t aiming to check off boxes to be politically correct. They’re aiming
to tell the interlocking story of these teenage boys and this 40-something woman
in a way that’s honest, thought-provoking, and extraordinarily
fascinating.
Of course, there’s always the worry that
just seeing two boys kissing — which happens the first time early in episode one
— will turn off some viewers from even watching. Hasak says that’s OK with him.
“I’m very aware that there are some television viewers who will flip the channel
upon the sight of two teenage boys making out. But my hope is that, as they push
the button, those individuals will question their prejudices — if only for a
moment — and that this will lead to an inner dialogue and newfound awareness of
just how far we’ve come as a society.”
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