Fastlane: GOOD slash
So my roomie and I are moved into our new apartment. Well, by "moved in" I mean, we paid the money and are now inside, but we have no furniture or anything else and are sleeping on the floor. But hey! We've got a roof! And after today, a shower curtain! And eventually I will buy a bed.
Meanwhile, Fastlane makes me so happy. (Now that it can be downloaded or watched streamed here.) It was such an awesome, awful, ridiculous show. Fast cars, fast girls, hot guys, hot guns and explosions. Eye Candy, Anna and I called it, and I forgot how true that was. Unbelievably lavish production values, top-of-the-line props and sets, a top-notch soundtrack, extravagant cinematography that's alternately effective and crazily over-the-top... plus a firm belief that you can never have enough slow-mo sequences.
And then of course there are the actors.
I showed the youtube clip of Van and Deaq I'd just posted to a friend yesterday. "Those two are gorgeous," she said. Damn right! All the main characters of this show are incredibly, impressively, improbably great looking. And they all spend as little time clothed as possible.
I really do love equal-opportunity objectification, and I so admire this show for tackling the issue head-on. Oh yes, there are girls in bikinis used pretty much as backdrop in most episodes, and plenty of female villains who spend as much time shredding their wardrobe as practicing crime. But there is just as much, if not more laughably in-your-face objectification of the male leads as well. When the guys aren't wearing skin-tight clothes, they're changing out of them, stripping out of them because "the sun's coming up," or being otherwise divested of them. I think there's some kind of contractual obligation that there has to be at least one shirtless scene per episode. Van, the designated "pretty boy" of the duo (though Deaq is just as drop-dead gorgeous) seems to have at least one patting down/strip search scene per episode as well.
And speaking of Van and Deaq... oh man. May well be my favorite screen pairing ever. Their dynamics, once the actors get into it (first episode is pretty shaky, especially acting wise), are great great great. And they're just such a...couple. One of them is not a sidekick to the other, nor a foil for the other in any traditional way--they're just one unit who fit and work together perfectly. I love Van. I love Deaq. I love love Van-and-Deaq. I don't get the people who say they prefer one or another--to me, you can't have one without the other! They have to be together, you take them both as set! And as such, it is also one of the few shows where the black guy is as important as the white guy. Van can, I suppose, still be seen as a bit more of the "main" character, (and this review of the first ep perceives Deaq as occupying second-place) but that's really just the first episode. Actually the entire demographic of the show is split rather neatly between black and white--I used to joke that while I appreciated the conscientious attempts at racial balance, someone should tell the writers that people of other colors exist too. However, if I remember rightly, the writers did eventually get that memo, and anyway, even a cleanly biracial cast is still loads better than what most shows have. The only thing is that Van gets the lion's share of disposable romantic interests and Deaq is mostly left solo, but I don't mind that so much, and we're getting to why. :-D
The slash. Oh man, the slash. Oh man, the dialogue. Oh man, the blatant homoeroticism in this show is so brilliant.
In the first two episodes alone... I though they'd ease into it, but ohhh no. Van and Deaq "meet cute" when Deaq passes Van a note with a hotel key and a lipsticked kiss (through a female waitress), and then pulls a gun on him when he shows up. Van ups the stakes by refusing to duel with guns and instead instigating one of the most hilariously suggestive bare-hands tussling scenes ever (complete with each slamming the other against a wall and a fall into a pool, wherein they surface laughing). Of course they bicker at first, and Deaq has his reason to be especially standoffish from Van, but Van right away seems to have a bit of an interest in Deaq. Especially manifested in making Deaq do silly things on stage so that he can watch. And of course there's a girl, but when she proposes to Van that they go away together, he turns her down, and at the end Deaq sends her away and Van seems far more pleased about getting to share a moment of camaraderie with Deaq than upset about never seeing the girl again. (He doesn't seem upset about that at all.)
The second episode already amps it up into second gear. Deaq is still acting stand-offish, but the episode starts with Van just about begging (!) and then bribing (!) Deaq into letting Van hang out with him after work. Deaq tells Van that he wants to keep their relationship professional because Van makes him "distracted." When he later brings Van by one of his friends/informants, the guy rolls his eyes that Deaq brought his "little white friend" again, and Deaq exclaims "he's my partner!" in a way that makes me giggle.
There's a girl again (of course) but Van seems even less into her than the last one--he kisses her once in order to win her trust, and then after they make their business exchange, she literally pulls him back 'cause he's about to split without so much as a backward glance. Deaq has no girls. Deaq is, in fact, really annoyed that Van spends all this time on these damn blonde girls. Van protests that it's all part of his job, and Deaq wants to know whether he'd spend as much time "getting to know the criminal" if the criminal in question was a fat old man. Oh, Deaq, so much love for you.
To his credit and my delight, Van does in fact do the same thing (the getting-to-know-and-humanizing-the-mark, not the snogging them bit) next episode, when their mark is a guy, albeit not a terribly unattractive one. Hee. My respect for him rises.
Then there is also a great scene of Deaq singing karaoke of "For Once In My Life" by Stevie Wonder intercut with footage of a bare-chested Van being menaced at knife-point by the blonde girlie Deaq had so warned Van about. Sample lyrics: "For once in my life I have someone who needs me /Someone I've needed so long..."
...
The symbolism of Deaq starting the song off awkward and hesitating and then really getting into it, and the obvious danger that heterosexual relationships bring to Van is... well... rather needs no words.
And then! And then! Van comes back from an evening spent investigating the girlie, and finds a furious and worried Deaq waiting up for him. The following exchange ensues (transcribed as exactly as I can make it):
Van: Hey.
Deaq: Hey?! (walks up to him, agitated) Is that all you have to say for yourself, is "Hey?"
Van: Ok. Hey... you... really should get that sonic toothbrush.
Deaq: Look, man. (grabs him by the shoulders) While you were out there hitting it with Jade, I've been sitting here for six hours man. Wondering, if you're dead or alive.
Van: Look, I wasn't hitting it with Jade, ok? I was just... driving around trying to clear my head, that's all.
Deaq: Ain't nothing to clear, Van. You don't even think! I'm your partner, man. I'm supposed to know... where you are. If you're ok. Or if you're just an idiot!
Van: (softly, sincerely) Sorry... ok...? I just... I really hate this sometimes.
Deaq: Hate what? What, you gonna give me that "I feel bad for the girl" speech? Cause if you are man, I don't want to hear it.
Van gets all emotive and sensitive to him about the job and how he hates lying to people and how he feels so guilty dammit, and Deaq sighs and says, "I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better, you know?"
Van: Look, I'm... I'm sorry I didn't call, ok? I didn't mean to worry you. (pauses, anxious) ...We cool?
Deaq: Yeah. We cool. (they hug!!!!!)
Then their boss Billie comes in and sees them and says, "You guys are gay, aren't you. Not that I care, it's totally cool with me." Which is a reference back to the beginning of the episode when Van asked her if she was a lesbian, "not that he cared, it was totally cool with him," but the thing is, later episodes proved that she was, so by rules of parallelism... and they don't deny the gay thing but just kinda cough and break away, and oh man oh man hahahah. Then Deaq rolls his eyes in front of the boss about Van's oversensitivity, and Van counters smugly, "he likes me, he was worried!" and I grin like a maniac.
And then at the very end, Van shoots Deaq in the butt in order to stop him from being killed by other agents, and after Deaq goes to the hospital it's apparently Van's job to change his dressings? (!!!) And the episode finishes with this lovely exchange:
Deaq: (lying on his stomach on the couch, Van behind him, straddling him) OWWww, you're hurting me, man!
Van: I'm trying to be gentle, ok? Will you just stay still?
Billie: (watches all this with bemused skepticism)
Deaq: mrgghhh... you're doing it too slow, that's the problem; it wouldn't HURT if you just did it FAST!
Van: Don't tell me how to do it! I know how to do it, ok? I've done it before!
Deaq: (makes all sorts of pained noises, culminating in "Aow!")
Van: There. It's over. Ok, you big baby?
Billie: says something about other people not whining so much.
Deaq: You know, a black man takes pride in his booty! And mine was fine--
Billie: It was okay.
Deaq: It was great. And now look at it, it's all... dented...
Van: (looking over solicitously) It still looks pretty good to me.
More bickering ensues, but in the end, the boss leaves and Van stays with Deaq because he "thought he'd want some company." Awww. Awwwwwwwwww.
And that's just the second episode, guys.
I can't believe the mainstream audience totally did not pick up on any of this.
Meanwhile, Fastlane makes me so happy. (Now that it can be downloaded or watched streamed here.) It was such an awesome, awful, ridiculous show. Fast cars, fast girls, hot guys, hot guns and explosions. Eye Candy, Anna and I called it, and I forgot how true that was. Unbelievably lavish production values, top-of-the-line props and sets, a top-notch soundtrack, extravagant cinematography that's alternately effective and crazily over-the-top... plus a firm belief that you can never have enough slow-mo sequences.
And then of course there are the actors.
I showed the youtube clip of Van and Deaq I'd just posted to a friend yesterday. "Those two are gorgeous," she said. Damn right! All the main characters of this show are incredibly, impressively, improbably great looking. And they all spend as little time clothed as possible.
I really do love equal-opportunity objectification, and I so admire this show for tackling the issue head-on. Oh yes, there are girls in bikinis used pretty much as backdrop in most episodes, and plenty of female villains who spend as much time shredding their wardrobe as practicing crime. But there is just as much, if not more laughably in-your-face objectification of the male leads as well. When the guys aren't wearing skin-tight clothes, they're changing out of them, stripping out of them because "the sun's coming up," or being otherwise divested of them. I think there's some kind of contractual obligation that there has to be at least one shirtless scene per episode. Van, the designated "pretty boy" of the duo (though Deaq is just as drop-dead gorgeous) seems to have at least one patting down/strip search scene per episode as well.
And speaking of Van and Deaq... oh man. May well be my favorite screen pairing ever. Their dynamics, once the actors get into it (first episode is pretty shaky, especially acting wise), are great great great. And they're just such a...couple. One of them is not a sidekick to the other, nor a foil for the other in any traditional way--they're just one unit who fit and work together perfectly. I love Van. I love Deaq. I love love Van-and-Deaq. I don't get the people who say they prefer one or another--to me, you can't have one without the other! They have to be together, you take them both as set! And as such, it is also one of the few shows where the black guy is as important as the white guy. Van can, I suppose, still be seen as a bit more of the "main" character, (and this review of the first ep perceives Deaq as occupying second-place) but that's really just the first episode. Actually the entire demographic of the show is split rather neatly between black and white--I used to joke that while I appreciated the conscientious attempts at racial balance, someone should tell the writers that people of other colors exist too. However, if I remember rightly, the writers did eventually get that memo, and anyway, even a cleanly biracial cast is still loads better than what most shows have. The only thing is that Van gets the lion's share of disposable romantic interests and Deaq is mostly left solo, but I don't mind that so much, and we're getting to why. :-D
The slash. Oh man, the slash. Oh man, the dialogue. Oh man, the blatant homoeroticism in this show is so brilliant.
In the first two episodes alone... I though they'd ease into it, but ohhh no. Van and Deaq "meet cute" when Deaq passes Van a note with a hotel key and a lipsticked kiss (through a female waitress), and then pulls a gun on him when he shows up. Van ups the stakes by refusing to duel with guns and instead instigating one of the most hilariously suggestive bare-hands tussling scenes ever (complete with each slamming the other against a wall and a fall into a pool, wherein they surface laughing). Of course they bicker at first, and Deaq has his reason to be especially standoffish from Van, but Van right away seems to have a bit of an interest in Deaq. Especially manifested in making Deaq do silly things on stage so that he can watch. And of course there's a girl, but when she proposes to Van that they go away together, he turns her down, and at the end Deaq sends her away and Van seems far more pleased about getting to share a moment of camaraderie with Deaq than upset about never seeing the girl again. (He doesn't seem upset about that at all.)
The second episode already amps it up into second gear. Deaq is still acting stand-offish, but the episode starts with Van just about begging (!) and then bribing (!) Deaq into letting Van hang out with him after work. Deaq tells Van that he wants to keep their relationship professional because Van makes him "distracted." When he later brings Van by one of his friends/informants, the guy rolls his eyes that Deaq brought his "little white friend" again, and Deaq exclaims "he's my partner!" in a way that makes me giggle.
There's a girl again (of course) but Van seems even less into her than the last one--he kisses her once in order to win her trust, and then after they make their business exchange, she literally pulls him back 'cause he's about to split without so much as a backward glance. Deaq has no girls. Deaq is, in fact, really annoyed that Van spends all this time on these damn blonde girls. Van protests that it's all part of his job, and Deaq wants to know whether he'd spend as much time "getting to know the criminal" if the criminal in question was a fat old man. Oh, Deaq, so much love for you.
To his credit and my delight, Van does in fact do the same thing (the getting-to-know-and-humanizing-the-mark, not the snogging them bit) next episode, when their mark is a guy, albeit not a terribly unattractive one. Hee. My respect for him rises.
Then there is also a great scene of Deaq singing karaoke of "For Once In My Life" by Stevie Wonder intercut with footage of a bare-chested Van being menaced at knife-point by the blonde girlie Deaq had so warned Van about. Sample lyrics: "For once in my life I have someone who needs me /Someone I've needed so long..."
...
The symbolism of Deaq starting the song off awkward and hesitating and then really getting into it, and the obvious danger that heterosexual relationships bring to Van is... well... rather needs no words.
And then! And then! Van comes back from an evening spent investigating the girlie, and finds a furious and worried Deaq waiting up for him. The following exchange ensues (transcribed as exactly as I can make it):
Van: Hey.
Deaq: Hey?! (walks up to him, agitated) Is that all you have to say for yourself, is "Hey?"
Van: Ok. Hey... you... really should get that sonic toothbrush.
Deaq: Look, man. (grabs him by the shoulders) While you were out there hitting it with Jade, I've been sitting here for six hours man. Wondering, if you're dead or alive.
Van: Look, I wasn't hitting it with Jade, ok? I was just... driving around trying to clear my head, that's all.
Deaq: Ain't nothing to clear, Van. You don't even think! I'm your partner, man. I'm supposed to know... where you are. If you're ok. Or if you're just an idiot!
Van: (softly, sincerely) Sorry... ok...? I just... I really hate this sometimes.
Deaq: Hate what? What, you gonna give me that "I feel bad for the girl" speech? Cause if you are man, I don't want to hear it.
Van gets all emotive and sensitive to him about the job and how he hates lying to people and how he feels so guilty dammit, and Deaq sighs and says, "I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better, you know?"
Van: Look, I'm... I'm sorry I didn't call, ok? I didn't mean to worry you. (pauses, anxious) ...We cool?
Deaq: Yeah. We cool. (they hug!!!!!)
Then their boss Billie comes in and sees them and says, "You guys are gay, aren't you. Not that I care, it's totally cool with me." Which is a reference back to the beginning of the episode when Van asked her if she was a lesbian, "not that he cared, it was totally cool with him," but the thing is, later episodes proved that she was, so by rules of parallelism... and they don't deny the gay thing but just kinda cough and break away, and oh man oh man hahahah. Then Deaq rolls his eyes in front of the boss about Van's oversensitivity, and Van counters smugly, "he likes me, he was worried!" and I grin like a maniac.
And then at the very end, Van shoots Deaq in the butt in order to stop him from being killed by other agents, and after Deaq goes to the hospital it's apparently Van's job to change his dressings? (!!!) And the episode finishes with this lovely exchange:
Deaq: (lying on his stomach on the couch, Van behind him, straddling him) OWWww, you're hurting me, man!
Van: I'm trying to be gentle, ok? Will you just stay still?
Billie: (watches all this with bemused skepticism)
Deaq: mrgghhh... you're doing it too slow, that's the problem; it wouldn't HURT if you just did it FAST!
Van: Don't tell me how to do it! I know how to do it, ok? I've done it before!
Deaq: (makes all sorts of pained noises, culminating in "Aow!")
Van: There. It's over. Ok, you big baby?
Billie: says something about other people not whining so much.
Deaq: You know, a black man takes pride in his booty! And mine was fine--
Billie: It was okay.
Deaq: It was great. And now look at it, it's all... dented...
Van: (looking over solicitously) It still looks pretty good to me.
More bickering ensues, but in the end, the boss leaves and Van stays with Deaq because he "thought he'd want some company." Awww. Awwwwwwwwww.
And that's just the second episode, guys.
I can't believe the mainstream audience totally did not pick up on any of this.