"Difficult People": Billy pretends to be straight, Julie pretends to be Italian, and the son of the guest star takes his shirt off

  

Link to the nude photos

Yesterday on the treadmill, I watched Difficult People, a two season sitcom about two jerks, the Jewish Julie and the gay Billy (Julie Klausner, Billy Eichner. below). I've had a file of photos for a long time, so why not write a review?

Julie and Billy are trying to break into stand-up comedy as a pair. We only see snippets of their act, but it seems to involve insulting people.  Plots often involve pop-culture name dropping or the pairs' crazy relatives.  Among the famous guest stars are Amy Sedaris, Lucy Liu, Tina Fey, Mark Consuelos, and Kathy Lee Gifford.

Rounding out the cast are James Urbaniak as Julie's business suit-wearing husband, who works for PBS; Andrea Martin as her yenta mother; and Cole Escola, left, as the swishy queen who works with Billy at his coffee shop gig. 

This episode, "Italian Piñata" begins with the pair walking past the Stonewall Tavern, where the Gay Rights Movement began: queens upset over the death of Judy Garland weren't going to take the police harassment anymore, and fought back.  The Judy Garland angle has been completely discredited.  These were young adults in the 60s. They were into the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, not some singer from their grandparents' generation.

Billy notes that it's National Coming Out Day, when super-hot A-gays who spend the rest of the year snubbing everyone who isn't a Greek god do their public duty by offering to introduce newly-out guys to the culture.  It doesn't even matter if they're ugly or have a horrible personality -- or both, like Billy -- if you're newly out, you're in. 

Julie Turns Italian: On their way to a horrible party that Julie's husband had to plan for his PBS job, in Hoboken, the pair drops into an Italian meat shop, where some ladies like Julie's jokes about "meat in my mouth."  They have big hair, eat everything in sight, carry purses that "fell off a truck," and discuss what they'll do to the penises of boyfriends who betray them.  Julie is in love!  She announces to her mother and husband that she's coming out -- she now identifies as Italian!  The two are horrified.

Mom works as a therapist whose client -- the famous Mink Stole -- has a daughter in a cult.  They discuss deprogramming -- kidnapping the brainwashed girl and yelling at her until she "believes what I want her to believe." Mom thinks this would work on Julie.  

Billy Turns Straight: Meanwhile, Billy and Julie go to a New Jersey gay bar, where he gets the idea of pretending to come out.  He announces that he was straight until today, and Julie is actually his soon-to-be ex-wife.  The gay guys, including bartender Pasha Pelosie, left, all want to welcome him into the gay community.  

He gives the hunky Joey (Mark Consuelos, top photo) the job, hoping to get into the guy's pants for his "first time."  But Joey wants to take it slow.  First, a long, detailed course in gay culture -- which he gets all wrong, even the Judy Garland-Stonewall connection. Billy turns him on by pretending to be straight -- wearing cargo pants, thinking that Judy Garland was hot -- but it doesn't help. No sex.

Left: The guy with Mark in the top photo is his son Joaquin, now attending Michigan State University, where he is a wrestler.

When the two groups get together, Julie and Billy are outed -- he knows who Liza Minelli is -- and they are dumped by the Italians and the gays, respectively. At that moment, Mom and the Husband shove a bag over Julie's head to kidnap her for deprogramming.  The Italian ladies think that she's getting an  "Italian piñata." Use your imagination.

Subplots involve Mink Stole, bad hair resulting from getting it styled by students; and the husband's PBS party, which ends up with an office full of kids and a scary clown chasing his boss down the hall.

Beefcake: A split-second of Mark with his shirt off.  When you have to depend on the son of the guest star and guys far down on the cast list, you know there's something wrong. 

Left: Ben Bauer plays a Gay Rights Activist in one episode.

Heterosexism:  Not much. Julie and her husband don't seem to like each other. The swishy queen at the coffee shop notes that he came out a year ago and left his wife, but he still thinks about her all the time, so maybe he should give her a call. Maybe you're a swishy bi guy?

Homophobia: Billy's boss at the coffee shop, who is trans, calls him a "fag": "I can say it because I used to be one."  One of the Italian ladies suggests that they go to the gay bar next door and hang out with her "fag" brother: "I can say it because he is one."

Left: Sean Martin Hingston shows the pair his penis in another episode.

My Grade: I liked the episode construction, with the various subplots linked together, but the humor was outdated and trite.  Jewish mothers, har har.   A swishy straight guy, har har. 

Some dicks and butts from far down the cast list on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends