The Reel Review
A flamboyantly gay, gender non-conforming 22-year-old lands his dream career when the head of a makeup empire hires him away from his job at a shopping mall makeup counter. The mission? Help revive and save her stagnant company. Miss Benny (aka Ben J. Pierce) and Kim Cattrall star in this Netflix comedy series.
Glamorous is a dull, mostly brainless LGBTQ+ mashup of Ugly Betty, The Devil Wears Prada and Emily in Paris, with protagonist Marco as an annoying, self-absorbed wannabe social media influencer whose knack for applying makeup is exceeded only by a knack for making poor relationship choices. An excellent Cattrall, with a softer, more subtle take on her iconic Samantha/Sex in the City persona, is woefully underutilized amidst an array of underdeveloped, one-note characters. The only other standout – eye candy Zane Phillips, as her musclebound gay son Chad.
While it is refreshing to see a wide range of gay character types in a big series, the exceptionally bloated ten episodes in Glamorous could easily have been reduced to six and made it less tedious. Other than shining a light on the phony pandering of much corporate LGBTQ+ marketing, the uneven writing and low stakes storytelling is a frivolous, missed opportunity – disappointingly reductive and itself pandering to the LGBTQ+ community.
REEL FACTS
• Miss Benny is a non-binary social media influencer.
• Kim Cattrall will also appear in the season two finale of HBO’s And Just Like That.
• Actor Zane Phillips (Fire Island, Legacies) says one of the things that attracted him to the series was the fact that all actors playing gay characters are themselves gay.
I agree with you, watched the first episode and thought now I know why straight Republicans hate us. That is a poor example of gay images, we are not the stereotypes with limp wrist. This show puts us back to the 50's and the writing is so bad. How did Netflix approve this one??? Was this their Gay Pride gift to us????
Absolutely agree.