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*slightly shamefaced*
I appear to be actually watching 'Allo 'Allo, as opposed to just revisiting a few episodes when I needed a laugh. I've just started S5 and I'm somewhat embarrassed to confess that I'm (mostly) enjoying it enormously. And it turns out I hadn't seen as much of it before as I'd thought, because most of the pretty damn great S2 and S3 was new to me. Also, it helps to watch it in sequence.
True, the show is vulgar, stereotyped, makes endless boob, fart, bum, and dick jokes, and never met a sexual innuendo it didn't write into the script. It also requires complete suspension of one's critical faculties, and in particular any awareness of Nazi atrocities or what the occupation of France was actually like.
And yet there's good stuff alongside the cheap laughs. The women are generally smarter and braver than the men, and even Edith, the main character René's jealous wife, gets to be awesome with surprising frequency. It satirizes the English as much as other nationalities. And even though it's a deliberately vulgar and stereotyped comedy from the 1980s, it does a better job with its recurring gay male character, Lt. Gruber, than a lot of modern shows manage. For a start, it has a recurring gay male character. And although Gruber too is stereotyped, he's neither desexualized (yes, he has a crush on the straight main character, but he also seems to be getting some--lots--elsewhere) nor shown as predatory, nor is he miserable and lonely all the time (his piano playing draws quite a little fan club of handsome young men), nor has he so far been in any way killed off. And the show does something else quite interesting: one of its running gags is men crossdressing, but the one character who enjoys it is Herr Flick, a straight man, and Gruber emphatically does not crossdress for fun. (There's a lovely moment when, for plot reasons, he asks to borrow a lipstick from René's wife. Rene asks "Are you going somewhere special?", to which Gruber replies, "René, do not get the wrong idea about me. I do not wear lipstick. Even when I'm going somewhere special." I wanted to cheer. [I hope it's obvious that I don't think there's anything at all wrong with men wearing lipstick. In fact I think men in lipstick are quite sexy. But I do like to see stereotypes undermined.]) Some of the jokes about Gruber do have a homophobic edge--I'm not fond of another running gag where straight men are nervous about touching or being near him--but most of them don't, in my opinion.
I also find myself strangely fond of the kinky screwball-comedy pairing of Herr Flick and Helga. They're like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, only with dungeon jokes. And as far as I'm concerned, the show could put Herr Flick in stockings, suspenders/garters, and corsets in every episode, because, yum.
This isn't really a promotional post, because 'Allo 'Allo is the kind of thing you either like or you don't. Also, my own enjoyment was lessened early in S4 when they got rid of one of my favorite characters and introduced a replacement I can't stand. But I did want to talk about the show and its surprising queer-friendliness.
ETA: ARRRRRRRGH. Strike most of what I just said. I just read in Wikipedia about the last episode, in which we learn that Gruber marries Helga and has six children with her. KILL ME NOW. GOD DAMN IT.
Note to self: Never, ever trust a mainstream media source not to fuck up a queer character. No matter how well it seems to be doing.
True, the show is vulgar, stereotyped, makes endless boob, fart, bum, and dick jokes, and never met a sexual innuendo it didn't write into the script. It also requires complete suspension of one's critical faculties, and in particular any awareness of Nazi atrocities or what the occupation of France was actually like.
And yet there's good stuff alongside the cheap laughs. The women are generally smarter and braver than the men, and even Edith, the main character René's jealous wife, gets to be awesome with surprising frequency. It satirizes the English as much as other nationalities. And even though it's a deliberately vulgar and stereotyped comedy from the 1980s, it does a better job with its recurring gay male character, Lt. Gruber, than a lot of modern shows manage. For a start, it has a recurring gay male character. And although Gruber too is stereotyped, he's neither desexualized (yes, he has a crush on the straight main character, but he also seems to be getting some--lots--elsewhere) nor shown as predatory, nor is he miserable and lonely all the time (his piano playing draws quite a little fan club of handsome young men), nor has he so far been in any way killed off. And the show does something else quite interesting: one of its running gags is men crossdressing, but the one character who enjoys it is Herr Flick, a straight man, and Gruber emphatically does not crossdress for fun. (There's a lovely moment when, for plot reasons, he asks to borrow a lipstick from René's wife. Rene asks "Are you going somewhere special?", to which Gruber replies, "René, do not get the wrong idea about me. I do not wear lipstick. Even when I'm going somewhere special." I wanted to cheer. [I hope it's obvious that I don't think there's anything at all wrong with men wearing lipstick. In fact I think men in lipstick are quite sexy. But I do like to see stereotypes undermined.]) Some of the jokes about Gruber do have a homophobic edge--I'm not fond of another running gag where straight men are nervous about touching or being near him--but most of them don't, in my opinion.
I also find myself strangely fond of the kinky screwball-comedy pairing of Herr Flick and Helga. They're like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, only with dungeon jokes. And as far as I'm concerned, the show could put Herr Flick in stockings, suspenders/garters, and corsets in every episode, because, yum.
This isn't really a promotional post, because 'Allo 'Allo is the kind of thing you either like or you don't. Also, my own enjoyment was lessened early in S4 when they got rid of one of my favorite characters and introduced a replacement I can't stand. But I did want to talk about the show and its surprising queer-friendliness.
ETA: ARRRRRRRGH. Strike most of what I just said. I just read in Wikipedia about the last episode, in which we learn that Gruber marries Helga and has six children with her. KILL ME NOW. GOD DAMN IT.
Note to self: Never, ever trust a mainstream media source not to fuck up a queer character. No matter how well it seems to be doing.
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* I mean, in a way that makes the whole thing less funny, as opposed to the general seaside-postcard silliness of the original concept.
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