Bless this Mess, a 2-season, 28-episode sitcom on Hulu: "newlyweds decide to move from New York City to rural Nebraska." Huh? That's the wrong direction -- you abandon your homophobic small town for the safe haven of a big city. But I guess if they're heterosexual, one place is as good as another.
Scene 1: Big city transplants Mike and Rio (a woman) at the country-style house of their frenemy Beau. They came to watch his teenage son Jacob, aka Beef Boy (JT Neal, top photo), judge raw meat: "these two are top sirloin..that one is.steakhouse quality" Apparently this skill has made him famous at 4-H Clubs county-wide, and could lead to a career.
Also his father's love: if he wins the Meat-Judging Contest on Saturday, Beau will gift him with a belt buckle reading "Meat Champ" (if that's on your belt buckle, won't people want to check your meat?).
Scene 2: Mike( (Dax Shepard, left) runs into Jacob "Beef Boy" at the General Store: "You have a real talent. Here -- do my meat!" (do mine next! These homoerotic innuendos are obviously intentional).
But Jacob actually doesn't like judging meat; it's his father's interest, not his. Mike can relate: he used to have a band called Volsung (iconography and lyrics from Norse mythology), but his high school guidance counselor made him quit and go to college, where he studied journalism, became a reporter....and ten years later got laid off and had to move to Nebraska and become a farmer. Grr...
Scene 3: B plot about Rio learning to drive.
Scene 4: That night Mike and Rio discuss their days. Rio hated the driving lesson, and Mike is playing his guitar again.
Scene 5: Frenemy Beau (David Koechner, left) and son Jacob knock on the door. Beau is upset because Mike has been filling his son's head with "fairy tales." Now he refuses to judge meat! "I'm not Beef Boy anymore!" Jacob exclaims. "I'm a musician. Mike and I are starting a band!" He rushes in with a backpack, planning to stay with Mike.
Beau: "My boy is a golden god that smells like snow cones. His future is meat. Fix this!" He's been sniffing his son?
Scene 6: Jacob sings for Mike: "Did you ever get so sad that you tried to eat grass?" He's awful. Mike suggests that he go into meat-judging, and keep music as a hobby, but Jacob rejects the idea: "I got no passion for meat." Maybe you like ladies?
Jacob has researched Mike's old band, Volsung, and bought one of their t-shirts online. Mike agrees to sing with him for nostalgia.
Scene 7: Mike and Jacob practicing a Volsung song.
Jacob: "Did you see my sex-god face?"
Mike: "Well, I don't..."
Jacob: "Here it is again. Are you turned on?" He's a minor! It's a trap -- don't answer.
Mike: "I'm going to say yes so we can move on."
Scene 8: The B Plot about learning to drive. Later, Beau and his wife discuss the Jacob problem: "Do you think we get too angry? Maybe we should try a different approach to get through to him."
Scene 9: Beau listening to Jacob and Mike play. He pretends that he loves it. "Maybe you could perform during meat-judging contest. Everybody in the county will be there."
Scene 10: The meat-judging contest. A dozen people with red hats and clipboards. Jacob tells Mike the plan: "As we discussed, I will judge meat for a few minutes, then yell 'rancid meat'! Then you run onto the stage in Viking gear -- I have mine under my clothes -- and we unleash the raven!" Because Odin had a raven. Get it?
Scene 11: The B Plot.
Scene 12: Nervous, Jacob takes the stage and begins meat-judging. He gets so much adulation that he forgets to give Mike the signal, and turns his judging into a sexy rap: "Though #1 displayed a uniform color and was firmer, #2 displayed much less...bone." I prefer more bone. He looks like a construction worker-stripper, but nothing actually comes off. Stil, everyone cheers, and a row of high school girls swoon.
Later, Mike and Rio congratulate Jacob on his victory. He realized that he has no passion for either meat or music; his true passion is being cheered. So, Magic Mike in your future? Then: "I'm gonna bounce. Some of the kids want me to autograph their meat." Taste it first.
Mike takes the stage and begins singing a Volsung song. The end.
Beefcake: Jacob is cute; the other two male cast members, not so much.
Gay Characters: Jacob is not canonically gay -- he has a girlfriend in another episode -- but here he doesn't display any heterosexual interest: no "as a musician I'll get girls," both boys and girls cheering as he judges the meat. Plus asking Mike if he's "turned on" by his "sex-god face" suggests that he wants to be a sex-god with men and women both.
Homoerotic Innuendos: Obviously intentional, but the joke is that everyone is oblivious.
Follow Your Dream: I expected Dad to accept Jacob's interest in music, not meat, a sort of parallel to being interested in boys, not girls (or girls, not boys). But it didn't happen.
My Grade: A- for the episode, C for the series.
I mean, it's not that the big cities are less homophobic. Just that certain neighborhoods are. Neighborhoods which are increasingly gentrified.
ReplyDeleteI think it's not a matter of being homophobic per se, but how you express it. In big cities, you see gay people all the time, so you're likely to say "it's none of my business" and let it go. In small towns, they are uncommon, so you'll likely to see them as an invasion of your space, and laugh, comment, or attack. The number of hate crimes per capita in small towns is triple that of big cities.
DeleteDepends on where you are. Avoid the Bible belt of course.
DeleteBut, like, there are a lot of Indian reservations in those states where men just casually hook up to avoid the need to recite genealogy, and because the culture of Good Girls Don't is alive and well in plains Indian societies.