Noah's Arc (my review)

I first saw Noah's Arc last fall when the HRC had a screening of the show and reception with the cast at their new headquarters. Finally after several months of promoting the show it has finally aired on the Logo network, the gay network that I often forget exists. What some consider groundbreaking, I consider a perpetuation of the negative stereotypes of black gay men. To me the show exhibits two types of GBMs... the queen and the overly masculine DL brotha. The uberflamboyant characters and mediocre acting take away from what could actually be a pretty good storyline.

I was able to catch some of tonight's premiere episode, which was somewhat different from the episode I saw at HRC and at the Reel Affirmations film festival last fall. While the storyline remained the same, most of the scenes were reshot and the sex scenes were quite toned down. For those who haven't seen or heard of the show it is about the lives of four black gay men in Los Angeles and their romantic and professional relationships.



I believe the show has the opportunity and responsibility to be a strong and positive voice for African American gay men. And with a possible viewership of 18 million. It will be interesting to see how the show develops over time, I recommend you at least checking it out for yourself. Noah's Arc airs Wednesdays at 10pm E.D.T. on Logo.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the show is heading in a good direction. Yes, it definitely exhibit the queens and the dl. I feel its important that they do that. We have soo many queens and dl men in our community.

I think the next couple of expisode will highlight many situations we all go through.

Although, I do not act(uberflamboyant) like Noah, I can relate to his character. Especially, at the end when he said "but, who is going to protect me."

That line is FIRE!

I didn't like the way he did it (on the phone). On the screening version, he was holding dude and in the narration he said that line.

FIRE!

Anonymous said...

If you like Noah's Arc, check out "The Closet" on the Q Television Network (www.qtelevision.com)

http://thecloset.tv/TheCLOSET_QTN.html

Anonymous said...

the show is too queeny to be real, but it's a good program overall...I just hope there will be some compelling story lines in the future...and "The Closet"??? That is garbage...overacting...trying to be so grand with all the scene...the DL shit is too over the top to be true...and there are too many characters that you cannot tell which ones are the main characters.

Anonymous said...

good review - and many people do feel it upholds stereotype. I think others are so starved for any images of black gay folks that they will take what they can get. good post!

Anonymous said...

WEll,I THINK WE SPEND TOO MUCH TIME TEARING DOWN OUR OWN THAT WE DON'T TAKE TIME TO LOOK AT THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF A SHOW OF THIS CALIBER. SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What the hell is wrong with effeminate black gay men?? We come in all shades, sizes, and mannerisms. And I believe the Noah's Arc celebrates a small variety of our community. Trust me when I tell you the old saying is true: "you can't please all of the people all of the time." Can you imagine if Patrick-Ian Polk tried to do that, we would never have a show "we" could identify with or even begin to identify with. How dare we try to alienate our effeminate brotha's. Isn't America doing a good job of that alone? If most of the characters were butch, then it would be his is trying to hard to not fall into the stereotypical gay man. I say to Patrick...."do you boo-boo."

Much love,
Mark