Ryan Murphy is a White, openly gay and very successful TV writer-director-producer. The shows in his list of credits include POSE, GLEE, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, FEUD starring Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford during the making of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, his HOLLYWOOD mini-series and HALSTON, the Netflix mini-series bio starring Ewan McGregor as the famous fashion designer.
Murphy's current creation for Netflix is MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY. It's based on a true story of pure evil that darkened Milwaukee for years. A serial killer preyed upon mostly gay men of color in Milwaukee. When his crimes came to light, the news shocked Milwaukee. But, to me, it should not have been a total shock based on the city's long, noted history of racism and homophobia. I lived in Milwaukee for 10 years. My apartment was 5 blocks away from his. Jeffrey Dahmer left a White, middle class suburb and moved into a predominantly Black neighborhood where residents were under-served and treated like second class citizens. He could play his White Privilege card when dealing with police.
I wrote about this a few days in my "Ryan Murphy and DAHMER" blogpost. I also added that Dahmer, when he hit the gay bars in search of victims, did not have a dorky bookworm appearance. He ditched the glasses, slicked his hair back and pulled his attire together. He was a handsome man who looked like an A-list male model for print ads or designer cologne TV commercials. He used that look as his personal spider web. There was no trailer for this new Murphy creation that I could put in my previous post about his Dahmer project. There is one now. Here it is.
Maybe I'm being too sensitive. Maybe it's because I had my bouts with racism and homophobia in Milwaukee. Maybe it's because I'm still angry over the Black and Brown lives taken that would not have been taken had White police protected and served that under-served community. But I can't watch this production to review it at this time.
It's obvious that Ryan Murphy likes to give us shows with a gay sensibility and gay characters. It's obvious that he likes to put Black characters and actors in his shows. However, in this case, I wish he'd given us something else.
Why couldn't Murphy have given us a TV mini-series bio on the life and times of Bayard Rustin, the brilliant and openly gay activist/singer who was Dr. Martin Luther King's top advisor, the man who was called "The Architect of the March on Washington"? There is -- at last -- a biopic of Rustin now in production with Emmy winner Colman Domingo in the lead role. An openly gay Black actor will be playing an openly gay Black historical figure.
Why couldn't Murphy give us the story of the celebrated singer/songwriter who reigned during the disco era -- Sylvester?
Or a mini-series biopic about groundbreaking Black and openly gay playwright Lorraine Hansberry? Not only did she write the Broadway play A RAISIN IN THE SUN, the show that made Sidney Poitier a star, she also write the screenplay for the 1961 film adaptation. Hansberry was the first Black woman to get an onscreen credit as screenwriter for a film released by a major Hollywood studio. Louis Gossett Jr invited me into his L.A. home to tape an interview. I asked him who should play Lorraine Hansberry if a biopic was done on her. Gossett was in the original Broadway cast of A RAISIN IN THE SUN and in the 1961 film. His immediate answer was "Taraji P. Henson."
FEUD and HOLLYWOOD showed his fascination lore. Maybe he could create a production inspired by the life and career of the late Ashley Boone. When I was new in my TV career and flew to L.A. and New York to interview celebs during movie junkets for entertainment, I learned of Ashley Boone from TV cameramen. They all said his name with reverence and affection.
When he was on contributor on the CBS weekday morning news show and wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter, future TCM host Robert Osborne said that Boone should be included in books about Hollywood studio heads.
Ashley Boone was Black, openly gay and he pretty much ran 20th Century Fox for half a year and pulled the studio out of the shambles it was in at the time. He was a marketing whiz. When THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW flopped at the box office in its initial theatrical release, he came up with the idea of the weekend midnight showings of it in theaters. Those became hugely popular and made the movie a pop culture favorite. When Hollywood insiders predicted that the first adventure would go immediately to drive-ins, Ashley Boone was the marketing whiz behind the initial STARS WARS trilogy. Need I tell you how big a hit that was for 20th Century Fox? He also worked on YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and ALIEN. Boone was a beloved Hollywood figure. His sister, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, is the first Black woman who was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I think you get my point. There may be critics who saw MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY and gave it a good review. But, right now, I just cannot bring myself to see my people being ignored and victimized.
No comments:
Post a Comment