June bugs

The Lavender Tube on Pride programs, pickets & comedies

Casa Susanna

For Pride, PBS has the outstanding “Casa Susanna” documentary from their “The LGBTQ+ Experience Collection.”

“Casa Susanna” is a groundbreaking story of a secret community, written and directed by Sébastien Lifshitz. As PBS describes it: “In the 1950s and ’60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed – dressed as and living as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for their self-expression.”

by Victoria A. Brownworth

It’s Pride Month! Happy ‘What has the GOP done to take away more of our rights’ month! Cue sarcasm font as we await the excitement of which stores we can’t shop in any more (We’ll miss you, Target!), which beer we can’t drink any more (We never liked you, Bud Light!) and which politician will throw us under the bus next (Way to besmirch your father’s name, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.).

Pride is further complicated for those of us looking forward to a June filled with TV shows designed just for us. As series finales slam up against the ongoing writers’ strike that no one talks about like it’s not even happening, expect more reality TV shows to flood the airwaves. Dating shows, cooking shows – anything that doesn’t really require a writer.

The 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike is an ongoing labor dispute between the WGA labor union, representing 11,500 writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It began May 2. It already almost killed the Tony Awards and all of late-night talk shows.

Some series and specials pre-date the strike and were prepped to go, but expect to shell out more money for various streaming services as the summer heats up, due to the strike. It’s frankly shocking and gross that absolutely nothing has moved on the strike in a month and worse that there are so many rumors about using AI to replace writers.

So what can we watch in June? Netflix says, come on over for their Pride Month line-up. “There’s no better way to spend June than with our Pride Month collection, which features amazing shows, movies and specials for, by and about the LGBTQ community.”

The Ultimatum: Queer Love

Tie the knot or call it quits? Five long-term couples – all queer women and nonbinary people – are put under pressure to get married or move on in this queer-centric spin-off of “The Ultimatum.” The couples must work out, on camera, their conflicting feelings about marriage while simultaneously assessing the other participants for romantic potential by going into trial relationships with them.

Oh yes, it’s like that. If it sounds like a deliciously hot mess, it is. It’s also so laden with easy spoilers, all we can say is, once you start watching, you won’t be able to quit; on Netflix. Go get it.

“Casa Susanna” is “told through the memories of those who visited the house, the film provides a moving look back at a secret world where the persecuted and frightened found freedom, acceptance and, often, the courage to live out of the shadows.”

Using a rich trove of color photos of Casa Susanna’s guests, archival footage and personal remembrances, the film introduces Diana and Kate, two people whose lives were forever changed at Casa Susanna. They travel back to the now-abandoned site and share their memories of a time when people like them, from all over the country, came to a place where they were free to dress and live as women from morning to night. They found each other and the refuge of Casa Susanna through word-of-mouth and Transvestia, a magazine for and by the trans and cross-dressing community.

With lush cinematography by Paul Guilhaume, the documentary is a history we have not seen previously. The memories of those who visited the house where they found the freedom and acceptance they needed to live the lives they always dreamed of are incredibly poignant. Beautiful, heartbreaking, “Casa Susanna” is must-see programming. June 27, on PBS or watch online.

Smothered

This irreverent dark comedy is not for everyone, but it is fast and dirty and often hilarious and with very short episodes you can decide quickly whether you want to play with it or not.

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“Smothered” is described by creators Jason Stuart and Mitch Hara as “an hysterical and sobering look at a hateful, gay, Jewish middle-aged couple who can’t stand each other, but can’t afford to get divorced.”

Season one of “Smothered” relied on the handy device of Hara and Stuart’s bickering couple going to a different couples counselor every five or sixminute segment. Season two opens things up, ushering in a slate of recurring secondary characters, including

Meh-made remake Disney’s live-action ‘The Little Mermaid’ falls short

by Gregg Shapiro

Disney’s Oscar-winning 1989 animated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” launched a whole new era for the studio. With songs co-written by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, “The Little Mermaid” initiated many young viewers into the world of Broadway-style musicals.

However, in recent years, some of the flagship features of that golden animation period, such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King,” have been remade as CGI-enhanced live-action movies with meh results (with perhaps the exception of “Beauty and the Beast”).

Helmed by Rob Marshall, whose 2014 movie adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Into The Woods” ranks among the worst movie musicals ever made, the director’s clunky touch is felt throughout this new version of “The Little Mermaid.”

Already a subject of buzz for the casting of Halle Bailey, a young, virtually unknown Black actress and singer in the lead role of Ariel, there ultimately doesn’t really seem to be an actual reason for this movie other than the profits that come from vault-raiding.

Almost an hour longer than the 1989 edition (meaning it’s at least 35 minutes too long), “The Little Mermaid” does make good use of technology in the colorful and dazzling underwater sequences. But it’s almost as if its intention is to distract you from the movie itself being as hollow as coral.

Ariel (Bailey), the beautiful and free-spirited daughter of King Triton (a completely miscast Javier Bardem), the ruler of the ocean kingdom of Atlantica, is fascinated by humans and their belongings, many of which she collects following shipwrecks. Triton has forbidden Ariel from making contact with humans (smart move!) but that doesn’t stop her from trying, causing grief for Sebastian (Daveed Diggs), a crab who has been tasked with watching after her.

An encounter with Prince Eric (hot Jonah Hauer-King), a landbased royal whose rebellious nature comes close to matching Ariel’s, leads to a life-changing deal for the mermaid.

Closely observed by the wicked Ursula (a marvelous Melissa McCarthy, who has credited drag queens and Divine in particular as the inspi- ration for her portrayal), the vengeful sea witch sister of Triton is obsessed with retribution. In an opportunity to take advantage of Ariel’s attraction to Eric, Ursula offers Ariel the chance to briefly experience what it’s like to be human in exchange for her siren’s song. As you may recall, this involves both romance and regret, resulting in an epic battle. mobbed-up family members, a lesbian mother, a formidable warden at a halfway house, and even a sexy “plumber.”

That epic battle is the film’s lowest low point (trust, there are others), in which Marshall forgot he was making a Disney movie and decided to dabble in some Marvel mayhem.

“Smothered” seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Revry and are available on YouTube and Amazon Prime; with Amanda Bearse, Jai Rodriguez, and Carole White, and directed by Carlyle King.

So for the romantic, the edgy, the sexy and the history – always the history – you know you really must stay tuned.t

This may also explain why “The Little Mermaid” now has a PG rating. In an effort to find something nice to say, Bailey holds her own, and both McCarthy and Awkwafina (as clueless seabird Scuttle) provide necessary comic relief. Perhaps the most disappointing part is the way that the music, both the original songs by Menken and Ashman (including “Part of Your World” and “Poor Unfortunate Girl”), as well as the new (yawn) contributions by Lin-Manuel Miranda, feel like afterthoughts in a way they weren’t in the cartoon. Rating: Ct