9-1-1: LONE STAR
Series 1 Fox/Ryan Murphy Television (on Amazon Prime)
In 2018, three years after wrapping Glee, Ryan Murphy was suddenly working on three simultaneous hits – American Horror Story, Pose and
9-1-1, all very different, all still going strong. First-responders drama, 9-1-1 now has a spin-off, Lone Star, with a change of location (to Texas from NYC) and cast. This new version might have looked dull and worthy on paper but it plays out really well and is great fun.
Clearly, Murphy set out to reinvent the genre. He creates the world of rescue ops with grit and drama, if a little off-the-wall, then fills it with characters playing so hard against type it’s like a sobering punch in the face. Here’s a world where hard-nosed rescuers are also vulnerable, they cry, they moisturise.
In the pilot, Rob Lowe – 56, fit, chiselled and hot – is the rescue team’s new captain and he’s having a heart-to-heart in the change-room with one of his men, black trans guy Paul, played by Brian Michael Smith, the first black trans actor ever to land a series. Captain Lowe is taking him through the rigours of skincare.
The series opens with Lowe’s son, TK (Ronen Rubinstein), announcing: “Dad, I’m going to propose to Alex today.” This being a Ryan Murphy show, Alex is Alexander and the tone is firmly set for the rest of the season. Liv Tyler is awesome as the chief medic. Season 2 is coming.
(10 episodes) re-examine them through trans eyes, going all the way back to DW Griffith, whose transphobia was as huge as his film pioneering, and his racism.
It becomes evident that screen depictions of trans people not only reflects gender anxiety, it creates it. It’s sobering to see Norman Bates, Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, Mrs Doubtfire, Tootsie, Tom Hanks in Bosom Buddies through fresh eyes.
Trans actress Laverne Cox (Orange Is The New Black) remembers being laughed at in public but acknowledges that the public has been trained to do that. “We’re freaks, you see. We only wear a dress to make people laugh.”
Black trans actor Brian Michael Smith (9-1-1: Lone Star) points to the tradition of black men being depicted as predatory, and that lynchings of black men often included emasculation. Putting a black man in a dress on screen for laughs amounts to the same thing.
Considering the context, it’s astounding that so many big-name studios let the producers plunder their vaults. Noticeably absent among all the clips are the guiltiest of all, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot.
Chaz Bono gives a rare interview. Also, trans actress MJ Rodriguez (Google her Hamilton audition of Satisfied), who plays Blanca on Pose.
(1 hour, 40 mins)