Glamorous is the new show on Netflix starring Kim Cattrall and YouTube star Ben J Pierce aka Miss Benny.
Set in the world of a leading beauty company, it’s a formula of one part Working Girl, to two parts Devil Wears Prada, with a dash of Sex and the City, a splash of Ugly Betty and a drop of Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys.
Gender non-conforming queerling Marco Mejia (Miss Benny) dreams of being a bigtime social media influencer and working in the field of make-up and beauty. He chats to his online audience, shares his tips, and quips his tag line ‘You’re beautiful! Say it back!”
Reality is not matching up to his dreams though, he lives at home with his single mum (Diana Maria Riva), works part-time on the makeup counter at a suburban department store and only has a few hundred followers.
Marco’s life takes a sudden change when Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall), former supermodel turned makeup mogul walks by his counter.
His sassy honesty and skills at beating a face impress her. Suddenly he’s on the up, hired to be her second assistant, working in the Big Apple.
Thrust into the world of fabulous fashion the pressure is on Marco not to flop. has he got what it takes to succeed? Can the team at Glamorous by Madolyn handle his fabulousness?
The paint by numbers cast includes Madolyn’s gay, but not that gay, jock son Chad (Zane Phillips), ambitious bisexual first assistant Venitia (Jade Patyon), smooth and wise lesbian-identifying product designer Britt (Ayesha Harris) her nerdy gay-boy sidekick Ben (Michael Hsu Rosen), social media manager Alyssasays (Lisa Gilroy) and her uber-cool assistant Nowhere (Kaleb Horn) – who hardly ever speaks and never removes his sunglasses.
The entire set up and introduction of characters happens in a whirlwind, and then suddenly we discover the company is in deep financial trouble, and the team will need to pull off a miracle to survive. Luckily Marco’s here to bring ideas, shake the tree, and “Yaas Queen” them into being a cutting-edge company for a new era.
The challenge with watching Glamorous is everything is something we’ve seen before. There’s a love battle between Marco and a hot f-boy he meets when he steps into the wrong Uber. Marco has great sex with Parker (Graham Parkhurst) but is he boyfriend material? Meanwhile puppy-dog eyed nerd from the office Ben is as sweet as can be, but has he fallen into the friend-zone? It’s an all-gay retelling of the Mr Big vs Aidan storyline from Sex and the City.
Kim Cattrall’s character Madolyn is beautiful and successful, she has high expectations but she’s not Miranda Priestly. She completely lacks a personality, but if she was to find one – well she’d just be Samantha.
The show’s central character Marco excels at being themselves with their heels, handbags and cute outfits. Marco has a voice that makes you want to hit the mute button and put on the subtitles. Don’t get me wrong I embrace campness, but watching this show I started to annoy the dog reciting Marco’s lines with vocal fry fullness and gay voice dialed up to the max.
There are flashes of nudity, Parker keeps losing his towel, but it never really gets steamy. It’s annoyingly camp but never totally over the top. It’s humorous, but never laugh-out-loud funny. The characters are all annoying and I couldn’t care less about any of their dilemmas. Except for Nowhere, who is a cool as Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys eating an apple. He hardly ever speaks, and honestly – he’s my favourite of them all.
The show has a great soundtrack, filled with queer classics and forgotten gems, like Paula Abdul’s under-appreciated jam Vibeology.
I watched all ten episodes; I’m hoping there is not a second series in the works.
Graeme Watson
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