Curator's Note
As someone who has often rooted for Nip/Tuck's Sean and Christian to get it on, I felt very ambivalent about this dream sequence. Though Youtube fans proclaim the scene as "hot", I felt cheated. It's a dream sequence for Christ's sake! Why can't they just KISS?!? While clearly pushing boundaries and playing to fan desires in ways that SNG or other homo-erotically inflected texts never overtly would, this fantasy is both loaded with gay stereotypes (even if these are presented as desirable eye candy) and frames homosexuality as a nightmarish perversion of male friendship. This led me to rethink my stance on the closeted McNamara/Troy romance: does Nip/Tuck's continuous foregrounding of its "queerness" actually challenge viewers to re-evaluate codes of hetero-normativity and masculinity, or does it simply promote a kind of fetishization of the "other" while continuing to criminalize homosexuality and "alternative" lifestyles?
Comments
For me, this show has gone
For me, this show has gone "south" in a hurry; I was a big fan up through the middle of this season or so. I think my waning faith and interest in it is directly related to this issue that Avi brings up. "N/T" marketing has foregrounded its queer author and its "thoughtful" narrativization of various sexual issues through now. Regarding the romance between the two protagonists, do it or don't do it -- relegating it to a dream sequence is a ridiculous containment mechanism that is embarrassingly naked in its attempt to toe the line of what's "safe." It's like a bait-and-switch. And not a very good one, at that.
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