American Horror Story
Directed by Ryan Murphy
FX (Cable Television)
Enlightened
Directed by Mike White
HBO
MEET THE HARMONS: Ben, wife Vivien, daughter Violet—good-natured folk who move from Boston to L.A. after buying, unwittingly, a popular stop known as the “Murder House” on a Hollywood house tour. Like so many before them, the ill-fated Harmons don’t know what kind of resident evil lurks within. The house itself figures as prominently as any character in American Horror Story, the new hit show from out TV mogul Ryan Murphy—of Glee and Nip/Tuck—who was busy mapping out the show’s first season well before Glee took flight. The payoff has been appreciable: with more than three million viewers in close to sixty countries, FX has a hit on its hands.
Like roaches in the familiar adage, residents like the Harmons check in but don’t check out. The house’s other occupants—such as an undead gay couple, a killer in an S&M suit known as the Rubber Man, and a baby-snatching busybody next-door (played by Jessica Lange)—make sure of that. American Horror Story marks a return to the macabre mean-spiritedness that imbued the execrable Nip/Tuck, though now Murphy is working in a new genre apparently inspired by his Irish Catholic roots. Of his childhood, Murphy told Rolling Stone (10/27/11): “I liked church and was obsessed with the crucifixion and leprosy and the pope. I would stand in church with my arms spread for an hour, doing penance for my sins. The nuns told my parents there was something wrong with me.” There’s certainly something wrong with the house he’s built for the Harmons, particularly with the gay ghosts named Chad and Patrick. The handsome pair brings a bit of bitchery to Murphy’s haunted house, locking horns with Violet (Lange doing the high-strung Blanche DuBois routine she does so well). Glass of wine in hand, Chad tells her: “This is our house and we’re having twins.” When Lange quotes Leviticus and calls him an abomination, he shoots back: “So is that hair-do.” When American Horror Story returns for a much anticipated second season, Murphy will present an entirely new cast in a new location. That sense of newness should mitigate the fact that everything about Murphy’s newest venture feels familiar. A mash-up of classics like Amityville Horror, The Shining, and Rosemary’s Baby, the show is deeply derivative and requires a broad suspension of disbelief. Another primetime series, also gay-owned and operated by screenwriter Mike White, is Enlightened (HBO), which defies the conventions of genre, combining elements of both comedy and drama. The show is basically a satire of the American subculture of self-help and self-actualization. Laura Dern plays a slightly deranged divorcée working for an L.A. company called Avedon, which she comes to consider a “corporate parasite.” The pilot begins on an unforgettable note: Amy (Dern) is outraged that sleeping with her boss has resulted in a demotion. Mascara running, she pulls the elevator doors back, her boss cornered inside, shouting: “I will bury you! I will kill you, motherfucker!” White skips ahead to Amy’s return from treatment in Hawaii, where she learns the joys of yoga, journaling, and social justice. Still, she threatens to sue if Avedon doesn’t rehire her. Once they do, Mike White appears as Amy’s new coworker and informs her that Judy, the head of HR, is a lesbian. Amy is certain that Judy will support her new initiative to form a women’s group at Avedon because, as she tells White: “Women are moms, caring, nurturing, and women who love women are even more like that!” Like most of Amy’s auditors, White looks on with puzzlement. Off-screen, White may not define himself as gay, but his father sure does: before coming out, Reverend Mel White was a ghost writer for some of the more putrid pillars of the Religious Right, such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Before writing scripts for Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black, Mike White wrote Chuck and Buck, an award-winning independent film about a closeted man-child (played by White himself) still in love with his childhood boyfriend. He shows up at Buck’s office, sucking a lollipop and suggesting they play the “game” they played as kids. “You know,” he says, “Chuck and Buck, suck and fuck.” White actually defines himself as bisexual. With Enlightened, he’s created the weirdest wonder on TV.
