Dare Me (on netflix, but originally aired on USA, one season only, canceled I know) has such a strange vibe that I can't read. Aside from the overt commentary on small town rust belt Americana where mobility has stagnated and the military preys on the vulnerable and desperate. What I mean is I can't tell if there's an intentional current of sexual tension between the three central women, two of them at times very toxic high school friends and the third their cheerleading coach, and so I feel like I'm left squinting at the screen going "???"
Ladies, is it gay to use your best friend's name as your phone password, say "call me after [work], lover," make constant insinuations that your best friend desires your same-sex coach, and overall be jealous and possessive of your best friend's time, attention, and loyalty???
And, ladies, is it kinda sorta gay, mixed up with admiration and that particular flavor of respect for older women, to hang around your same-sex coach, who gives you all these compliments and sometimes does things like touch your hair, your wrist to see your bracelet, your waist to practice aerials (with the camera framing calling attention to it), to help your coach conduct her extramarital affair because you think it's a slice of happiness for her, going so far not only to lie for her but to actually babysit her child so she can go meet her boy toy and make up lies about your own whereabouts during this time???
Ladies, what is even up with Colette French, I honestly can't say?
Ladies, is it gay for the camera framing to depict massages between two best friends in such an erotic fashion, mirroring the framing used for the heterosexual oral intercourse?
"There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls," indeed.
(Did Marlo Kelly [Beth Cassidy] and Herizen Guardiola [Addy Hanlon] do their own cheerleading stunts, like the lifts and tumbling and whatnot? Because if so... I'm impressed.)
