Like almost everyone, I admired the authenticity of gay life in Andrew Haigh's indie gem Weekend [watch now] and was anticipating his first tv series "Looking," which debuts Sunday, January 19. Still am, but less so. Even though it's HBO, the trailer has hints of that awful network glibness and the 30-something characters, despite their beards and bathhouse realness, are not fully free of the same funny-mopey vibe of the hipster gay cliche. Moreover, a show that brags so much about being shot in San Francisco should not be 100% white. You're in trouble when when your Bay Area series is less diverse than Modern Family (LA), The New Girl (LA), Happy Endings (Chicago), 2 Broke Girls (Brooklyn), The Mindy Project (Brooklyn), and Parks & Recreation (Pawnee, Indiana).
This led to the Top 100 LEAST Diverse Cities. Guess the producers weren't amped to film in Bismark or Dubuque or Scranton or Plymouth.
Last I checked Frankie Alvarez, Steve D'Assis and Raul Castillo are Latino.
O.T. Fagbenle is black
Justin Chao and Andrew Law are Asian
All are (according to IMDB and/or the trailer) regulars.
Not to mention Tanya Saracho (a Latina) is one of the writers.
And this is a 30 second trailer which made ME want to watch the show and I abhored stuff like Queer as Folk.
BONUS: We actually have OUT gay actors playing gay characters.
Posted by: Alejandro | November 22, 2013 at 07:25 AM