Now Streaming, ‘Sordid Lives: The Series’ Deserves Its Second Life
All indie films should have the longevity of Del Shores’ deep-fried 2000 Southern comedy “Sordid Lives.”
A beloved cult film among gay men from the South for its hilariously precise skewering of a certain class of Southerners, “Sordid Lives” might seem an unlikely candidate to spawn an entire franchise. Based on Shores’ play, the movie follows the foibles and follies of a tight-knit family reunited for the funeral of their matriarch. The cast is outrageously stacked, featuring everyone from Delta Burke and Olivia Newton-John to Beau Bridges and Bonnie Bedelia. And, of course, Leslie Jordan as Brother Boy, the institutionalized gay man who refuses to participate in his own “recovery” if it means not performing as Tammy Wynette in drag for his fellow patients.
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As Shores himself wrote in a look back at his gay cult classic, “Although we liked our little movie, we weren’t sure anybody else would. It was dark. It was twisted. It was… bizarre.”
To say people did is an understatement — the film did so well on the festival circuit and then on DVD that not only did it inspire countless quotes, but it spawned a 2008 prequel series for Logo. “Sordid Lives: The Series” premiered July 23, 2008, and reunited most of the film’s cast, with the addition of Rue McClanahan as matriarch Peggy. (Caroline Rhea and David Steen replaced Burke and Bridges, while Jason Dottley took over the role of Ty from Kirk Geiger.) And as a militant stage manager, there’s Allison Tolman in one of her first on-screen roles.
The series was popular enough to score a second season — but production company problems led to not only the series’ cancellation but the cast and crew being owed a few million dollars combined. Whatever behind-the-scenes turmoil happened, “Sordid Lives: The Series” is both a love letter for the fans and a chance to spend more time with the Ingram family in all their pill-popping, hair-teasing, chain-smoking, goat-killing glory.
“Sordid Lives: The Series,” much like the film, is unapologetically gay. Former soap star (and semi-closeted) Ty lands a role in an all-gay (and all-nude) play; Brother Boy embarks on a new therapy to “dehomosexualize” him by masturbating to a former bully, while also engaging in heart-to-heart conversations with the ghost of Tammy Wynette (played by Wynette’s daughter, Georgette). But the bedrock of the show is the ugly truth that Brother Boy has been institutionalized for decades for being gay. “I don’t know how you sleep at night, Mama,” LaVonda says. “Well sometimes I don’t,” Peggy replies. But then the comedy kicks back in, and we watch as Brother Boy’s therapist is hellbent on making him straight so she can get on Oprah (one of the funniest premises is anyone facing Jordan’s balls-out performance in a Tammy Wynette wig and thinking there’s a chance he could ever be straight).
So the series has gay bona fides. But for this former Texan (and for many Southern gay men I’ve met over the last two decades), the series’ charm is in the specificity of its Southern womanhood. There’s Bedelia’s Latrelle, insistent on keeping up appearances and blithely discounting gay men to her obviously gay son. There’s Ann Walker’s glorious LaVonda, cleavage heaving under frilly low-cut blouses and taking charge of every situation while dropping balloon-popping one-liners like cigarette ash. But Beth Grant’s Sissy is an uncanny creation. Eyes wide behind thick frames with a slanted beehive hairdo, Grant (a Southerner herself) nails Sissy Hickey’s warbling voice and the singular way that an entire generation of women spoke. “I know it,” she says over the phone in an eerie summation of conversations I heard my entire life. “I know it, I know it, I know it.” Each “I know” it conveys something different and equally imperative.
“Sordid Lives” succeeds (in all its incarnations, including a 2017 sequel, “A Very Sordid Wedding”) because it understands the culture clash that comes when a generation who can make “I know it” mean seven different things meets a generation who wants to be upfront and frank about their lives. But maybe that makes “Sordid Lives” sound like more of a thought exercise than what it is: A rip-roaring comedy about the families we have and the ones we make that features Olivia Newton-John musical performances, one of Leslie Jordan’s greatest performances, and more quotable lines than any series deserves.
Rewatching it for its 16th anniversary, I found myself happily slipping back into my original Texas accent. There is no higher praise from me.
“Sordid Lives: The Series” is now streaming on Tubi.
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