I think the "Cliche FAQ" could do a whole new chapter based upon the series premier of TNT's new police drama,
The Closer:
* the basic "twist": your classic
Homosexual Panic Murder . . . only w/ women, this time
* a woman, merely on the basis of being associated w/ ACT UP, is immediately (and, it turns out, correctly)
presumed to be "lesbo" (at least that slur is tagged. But since when are lesbians the only women to care about HIV/AIDS? For that matter: did ACT UP ever
kill anyone? Because in this story, they do
)
* our lesbian-murderer on the run, is found to be living---having had surgery---as a man. Since when is lesbian and FTM-transgender to be so quickly glossed over as one-and-the-same? (Even in the service of adopting a new identity: I mean, it's not like a woman can't adopt a new identity as another woman!)
* the murderer's murderer (see what I mean about CLICHE???). The above-mentioned "Panic" case: she's so disgusted to find that her male lover (whom she's only been "emotionally, not physically, intimate with") is . . . {gasp! shudder!} a
woman, that she bludgeons him/her, again and again and again, and the coup de grace,
shoots him/her in the face. Then, she strips off "his" clothing, to change "him" back into "her", to confuse the police. Because, you see, she may be a brutal murderer . . . but don't you EVER call her a
lesbian!!! No, sirree: she's a good Catholic girl!
Admittedly, their point on that last one may have been to show the wackiness of the killer: she's a "prolife demonstrator" who murders, see?
In short, on the basis of this premiere,
The Closer left me w/ an overwhelming BAD TASTE in my mouth, especially when you consider . . .
. . . the show basics itself:
* Kyra Sedgewick is a very good actor, but her character is also highly dubious. We're supposed to admire her Southern Gal toughness, but 1) it's at the expense of, in particular, the senior
black detective over whom she's promoted, 2) it seems she uses that Southern charm
sexually: that's right, she sleeps or at least TEASES to get her way. How admirable, eh? Not.
GG
Last but not least, she's touted as a "CIA-trained interrogator": hello, Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib? I hold my breath that she'll try the ol' Gitmo stand-by of the "put fake menstrual blood on the interogatee" trick Out