Hulu serves up ‘Drag Me to Dinner’
Hulu offers a new variation on the cooking competition reality show, and it’s a real drag. “Drag Me to Dinner” is hosted by cabaret star Murray Hill, recently seen on HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere.” Actor Neil Patrick Harris, performer Bianca Del Rio and comedian Haneefah Wood will act as a judging panel, as teams of drag performers go head-to-head week after week to serve up the most colorful dinners. Subtlety is not on the menu.
Dismissed by some as a dangerous and immoral threat to the nation’s youth, drag culture has long been a part of entertainment, and is as mainstream as “Some Like it Hot,” the 1959 comedy considered the greatest ever made, or “Bosom Buddies,” the TV sitcom that launched the career of Tom Hanks, everybody’s idea of a nice, normal guy.
My problem with mainstream corporate media’s embrace of drag is that it turns a powerful and at times transgressive artform into something obvious and even boring.
Drag has the power to make people think deeply about society and gender roles — but not when it’s reduced to a reality cooking show with all the nuance of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
› Speaking of Hulu, ABC offers the broadcast premiere of “The 1619 Project” (8 p.m., TV-14), which has already been shown on that streaming platform.
This network debut offers the first and final episodes of the six-part “Project.” The idea for the series came from a New York Times Magazine article looking at 1619, the year that Africans were first captured and brought to New World as slaves, as the nation’s origin date, and a way of discussing the contributions of Americans who arrived here not as free agents seeking opportunity or religious freedom, but as human chattel, property to bought, sold, beaten and exploited.
The year 1619 offers a challenge to traditional teaching since it’s just a year shy of 1620, the year of the pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock to build “a shining city on a hill.”
As a magazine piece, book and teaching tool, “1619” has faced serious backlash and has even been banned from schools and libraries.
It’s difficult to challenge or revise national myths. But history’s paradoxical elements invite such discussions.
It’s curious to contrast the reaction to “The 1619 Project” to that of the 1977 TV miniseries “Roots.” That series also challenged Americans’ perceptions of their history, put the enslaved and the slave trade at the center of the story and arrived just a year after the bicentennial of 1976, an orgy of commercialized and commodified official patriotism.
“Roots” was watched by an enormous audience and sparked a great deal of conversation and soul searching.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› On two episodes of “Night Court” (8 p.m., NBC, repeat, TV-PG): a judge’s daughter assumes his robes (8 p.m.); and works with a familiar face (8:30 p.m.).
› A divorced writer returns to her family ranch and to the saddle in the 2021 romance “Taking the Reins” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
› “Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon” (9 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-PG) offers salutes to the prolific composer and interpretations of his many songs by artists including Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Eric Church, Rhiannon Giddens, Susanna Hoffs, Jonas Brothers, Angelique Kidjo, Ledisi, Little Big Town, Dave Matthews, Brad Paisley, Billy Porter and more.