Maupin's stories always repelled me because their mushy-squishy soft center. But it took these TV movies to crystallize what was really at the core of the skin-crawling creeped-out feeling I got watching.
It's THIS: This Maupin doesn't know women. I'll bet long money that he never had a girlfriend or any kind of intimate relationship with a real, live female.
These "women" are fantasy figures---wish-fulfillment confections created by someone who actually wrote stories about two gay guys, and then turned one of them into a girl as a way to reach a wider market, and wider appeal = $$$. Nothing actually wrong with that, but it must be done RIGHT; like Cole Porter, say, or Noel Coward.
Adding to the creepiness is the arrested-development tone these stories have: there's a distinct undergraduate romanticism here---coming from a middle-aged man, that's real SPOOKY.
TWO Stars for its insight into the pathology of a bad writer.
It's THIS: This Maupin doesn't know women. I'll bet long money that he never had a girlfriend or any kind of intimate relationship with a real, live female.
These "women" are fantasy figures---wish-fulfillment confections created by someone who actually wrote stories about two gay guys, and then turned one of them into a girl as a way to reach a wider market, and wider appeal = $$$. Nothing actually wrong with that, but it must be done RIGHT; like Cole Porter, say, or Noel Coward.
Adding to the creepiness is the arrested-development tone these stories have: there's a distinct undergraduate romanticism here---coming from a middle-aged man, that's real SPOOKY.
TWO Stars for its insight into the pathology of a bad writer.