June Field Notes
Happy Pride recap from some stuff that IS gay and some stuff that just FEELS gay
Pride is a great excuse to up your Gay Content Intake™, and I took that challenge in stride this month. Some of it was amazing (see below). Some of it was mid. But I love living in a world where there’s enough gay art that some of it can be mid!!!
In addition to explicitly gay art, I also engaged with some pop culture that just *feels* gay—namely, Charli XCX. Without further ado, here’s what I loved this month:
Overcompensating, Prime Video
Benito Skinner, the star that you are! I am a real boomer about TikTok, so I’ll admit to not being familiar with bennydrama’s game before this show dropped. But when I saw the trailer, I knew I was in—it’s a nominally autobiographical sitcom about Skinner’s time as a closeted gay college bro. A Pride month gift.
To say that I enjoyed this show would be an almost criminal understatement. It’s the first time this year I’ve finished a show and then immediately rewatched it, and I know it will be a comfort watch for years to come, right up there with Veep and Parks and Rec. Skinner is the show’s North Star, but he’s surrounded by a supporting cast so talented it’s hard to decide who to mention first.
Skinner’s longtime collaborator and podcast co-host Mary Beth Barone plays his older sister, a formerly uncool cool girl who has a surprisingly rich arc over the course of the season that reaches its high with a karaoke performance I was audibly cheering on from my couch. Comedy writer Wally Baram gives the show a lot of heart and the season’s coolest Halloween look. But it’s the actor Holmes as Hailee Marie Matthews that stole the hearts of the entire internet, myself included. HMM is an icon, the moment, and something you just need to experience for yourself. Run, don’t walk.
The show also stands out for its pitch perfect depiction of the college experience—one that transcends time and makes both Millennials and Gen Z feel seen (and nostalgic). The scene of Benny rapping super bass to a crowded dorm room pregame felt…visceral. And that’s Overcompensating’s true standout quality: The whole story feels so authentic, I could practically taste a Four Loko again.
party 4 u by Charli XCX
Talking about Overcompensating is the perfect segue to talking about Charli XCX—she’s the show’s music producer as well as an executive producer AND guest star of one particularly memorable episode. The moment I knew I was sold on the show? When they used Charli’s song “party 4 u” at the exactly perfect emotional gut punch of a moment.
“party 4 u” is easily my song of the summer, and also my song of the year. It’s wormed its way into my heart and brain with a pathological precision. When Charli says YOUCOULDWATCHMEPULLUPONYOURBODYLIKEITSSUMMERTAKEMYCLOTHESOFFINTHEWATERSPLASHAROUNDANDGETYOUBLESSEDBYHOLYWATER, it is as close as I have come to a religious experience. She’s managed to take an absolutely devastating and fundamentally relatable human experience of freshly unrequited love and set it to an absolute motherfucking bop of a beat. F. Scott Fitzgerald, pack it up! You did not have this synth technology!
The music video, which premiered last month, is the perfect extension of the story. I watched it for the first time at baggage claim in the Houston airport and cried a little because girl, we have all been there. When she falls to the ground and just stays there! It’s so raw and emotional and simultaneously, I repeat, such a fucking bop. Sad girls who still want to throw ass salute you, Charli.
Anora, Hulu
Continuing the theme of chaos brunettes, I need to talk about Anora. I realize the time to talk about Anora was objectively last year, when it, you know, won Best Picture at the Oscars, but I hate the Academy and love to wait 1-5 years after a movie is popular to actually get around to it because I have a poor sense of the passage of time. So here I am. And I NEED to talk about Anora.
Mikey Madison, I am so sorry I was not familiar with your game. The accent work, the fight scenes!!, the POLE scenes, the youthful effervescence coming through right alongside Ani’s hard-won instinct to survive, no matter what. I could not take my eyes off of her! A character that got to show so many shades of humanity that writers and directors too often withhold (intentionally or otherwise) when bringing women to life on screen. Ani felt real, while also still being undeniably fun and captivating—so captivating that I didn’t look at my phone once for two hours and 19 minutes. That’s Oscar-worthy, baby!
So if, like me, you don’t exactly run to watch each year’s Oscar-winning films (watching Oppenheimer felt like being held hostage and I stand by that!!!!), you should go watch Anora. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will make you seek out the soundtrack on Spotify later. The scene where Anora does a choregraphed private dance to the Erika Jayne song? It will live rent free in my head forever.
Actress of a Certain Age, Jeff Hiller
Very hard to continue writing while I am thinking about the aforementioned Erika Jayne song thing, but we persist. In June, actor and comedian Jeff Hiller dropped an absolute delight of a celebrity memoir called Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success. I’ve written on here before about how much the show Somebody, Somewhere means to me, where Hiller stars alongside Bridget Everett as one of the most tender comedic leads I’ve ever watched. My best friend and I bonded over our love of the show, so when Hiller announced his book was coming out, we started counting down like 17 year olds in 2008 waiting for a new Twilight drop.
Like Hiller, I’ve read a LOT of celebrity memoirs in my life. If you’ve never read one, seriously, come to me for a list. But that experience makes me uniquely qualified to tell you if one is worth your time or not—and Hiller’s book is undeniably worth your time. Simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and really deep when it comes to topics like religion and homophobia, the book felt like a warm hug from a wise friend. I can’t recommend highly enough that you listen to it on audiobook—Hiller’s giggles and asides make for an audio experience akin to a really long, really good stand up set.
The cherry on top of a good pop culture month: Hiller’s book tour passed through Chicago and my two best friends and I got to sit front row for a reading and Q+A on this book. It added such a dynamic layer to the book to watch the author read it. This is a PSA: Support the arts! Go to book events! I laughed so hard at this one that when I looked in the mirror later, I realized my make-up had raccooned fully around my eyes. And that is the best endorsement of comedy that I know how to give.