IN LIVING COLOR’s “Men on Film”

It's as funny as a drive-by shooting.

I loved it.

My favorite characters in the show's most memorable skit.

Back when there was almost zero representation of gays on tv, they were fun, funny, and an acknowledgment that we exist.

They have not aged well.

"Golden Girls: Hated it.

Who cares about three old white heifers living in a house?"

If you can’t appreciate the hilarity of the Men on Film skits, try these bloopers. I’ve been laughing myself silly.

I loved them at the time, although they probably haven't aged well. And the thing I loved the most about OP's skit is that "straight" Blaine is boring and annoying. The audience is thrilled when he gets clobbered and the real Blaine comes back. Pretty daring at the time to have an audience cheering for a gay man to be his true self.

A lot of it hasn't aged well, like in the Men On Television skit linked in r6, where there are jokes implying that gay men aren't really men at all. I was too young to really know what gays thought of it at the time. I would have thought that by 1990, we were past that old-fashioned 1960s-1970s idea of gay men all wanting to be women and wear drag all the time. Guess we weren't. Sounds like the culture was still shifting at the time.

[quote]The "Men on ..." series was controversial within the LGBT community. At the time Blaine and Antoine were the only recurring gay characters on network television, also making them the only African American gay characters on the air. As evidenced by a 1992 survey by the San Francisco chapter of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, opinion was split roughly down the middle on the sketches. Half of respondents found the sketches humorous while the other half found them offensive and dangerous. Gay African American filmmaker Marlon Riggs sharply criticized the sketches, saying that they perpetuated "a notion that black gay men are sissies, ineffectual, ineffective, womanish in a way that signifies inferiority".

I thought they were the funniest thing on TV in grade school.

It really hasn't held up well at all though.

It's so-so. In Living Color has aged super badly. I couldn't watch anything with it as I've always hated Keenen Ivory Wayans. And Jim Carrey is as much fun as herpes breaking out over 100% of your body. I fucking hate Jim Carrey. Damon Wayans was always the funny one.

[quote] I would have thought that by 1990, we were past that old-fashioned 1960s-1970s idea of gay men all wanting to be women and wear drag all the time.

Will & Grace didn't even start airing until 1998, 8 years after In Living Color debuted and 4 years after it ended.

[quote]Back when there was almost zero representation of gays on tv, they were fun, funny, and an acknowledgment that we exist.

Exactly, people were split on it at the time. David Allen Grier said he didn't think it could be done today. Keenan Ivory Wayans said he thinks he could. David Allen also said there was a split between how older gay men and younger gay men felt about the sketches. Younger gay men loved it. Older gay men didn't think the topic should even be discussed. I thought they were funny as a kid.

However, they both have said there was no malice behind the bits and if you pay close attention, their topics don't actually bash gays or talk about gays negatively. There were a few filmmakers, however, who were upset that the sketches even mentioned their films.

The whole series has aged poorly. Shows would absolutely not make fun of people the way In Living Color did back then. Even SNL at its worst would never have had someone playing LaToya Jackson being threatened by Joe Jackson to stop misbehaving or he was going to lock her in a closet or someone playing Connie Chung rolling around on a bed singing, "Me want Maury, me love you long time!" to the tune of "Me So Horny."

As a 17 year old closet case I liked it but I honestly believed that's how all gay men were because those were the only types of gay men I saw on TV and in movies.

We were so desperate for representation that we embraced it.

Oh please, they were hilarious. Jim Carrey was the least funny person on that show. And who didn’t love Wanda…

I wonder how Oscar winner Jamie Fox’s feels about Wanda today?

That’s Foxx^^^…damned autocorrect…

My entire family loved In Living Color. I was so inspired by this duo. I thought they were so cool! I was such a little sissy. I used to go around saying “HAYYYTED IT” and snapping in z formation. I was 6. I also used to flip the bottom of my shirt through the neck and wear it around the house. My brother would tease me but I didn’t give a fuck. I was so carefree and confident. TAKE ME BACK!!!!

I vividly recall taping In Living Color each week, hoping there'd a a Men on Film skit. Friends and I always loved chatting about the skits the next day. I had several gay friends who had no interest in the series at all, but started watching because of the Men on Film skits.

The skits were funny and they were sometimes cringe worthy. But they were gay representation. In 1990, gays were no where to be found on TV, so any representation was better than no representation.

Yes, here 30 years later, the skits are quite dated and offensive . Shows how much the LGBTQ community has evolved in that time.

Make a gay man bucth: you are making them heteronormative.

Make them fem: you are stereotyping them.

It was funny. It wasn’t mean spirited. They were one of the most popular skits.