Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

with Kevin Fallon

New This Week

DJ Tanner cancels Christmas for the gays
It’s time to rethink the Chippendales.
Simply the greatest movie trailer there’s ever been.
Important Anne Hathaway news.
The biggest outrage of the week.

Don Your Gay Apparel!

Rumor has it that actress Candace Cameron Bure banned the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from her home. “Make the yuletide gay?” Not if she has anything to do with it, Judy Garland!

The actress, who spun her time as DJ Tanner on Full House into becoming a perennial cultural nuisance, is under fire this week for comments she made about her vision for the Great American Family TV network, where she is the Chief Creative Officer. This holiday season, that vision is for the gays to get the hell away.

Sorry, snowflakes. It’s time to put the “Christ” back in “Christmas,” and that means you will not be seeing a chiseled jawline in a ribbed maroon sweater sipping cocoa while making eyes at a hometown barista named Chad, who was right there all along.

In a recent interview, she pledged that Great American Family would not feature same-sex couples, bucking a popular trend on Lifetime, Netflix, and even Hallmark. (Gays, forever a trend! How fun!) Twitter, or at least the segment of it that Elon Musk hasn’t yet burned to the ground, went apeshit. Rightfully so! Now she’s saying that response isn’t very of Christian of us.

This whole thing is ludicrous and entirely expected, and yet it pissed me off anyway. So let’s vent about it.

It all started when you all made those horrendous Hallmark Christmas moviesan ironic cultural phenomenon. Cheesy holiday films have become a behemoth industry force and, now, a moral lightning rod. So it’s all your fault.

Bure’s career resurgence as a conservative voice on The View coincided with her reign over Hallmark’s yearly holiday movie schedule. As those movies gained in popularity, her celebrity also rose—an homage to the Jesus she loves so much.

In 2021, the Great American Family channel was launched, then called GAC Family. It was founded by Bill Abbott, a former executive at the Hallmark parent company; he was in charge when, under pressure from conservative groups, the network pulled ads from Zola that featured a same-sex couple back in 2019. The network was founded with a moral imperative: Hallmark simply had gotten too woke and edgy and lost its wholesomeness (yes, you read that correctly). Now, there is an explicit focus on Christianity. (In fairness, that is a departure from a genre that, while aggressively traditional, shied away from themes of faith.)

As my sources tell me, Bure had recently defeated Melissa Joan-Hart in a bloody cage match to determine who is the real queen of bad holiday movies. So Abbott recruited Bure, a Hallmark cash-cow and veritable celebrity missionary, and she now produces religious movies under the banner of “Candace Cameron Bure Presents.” The Wall Street Journal interview that ignited the current firestorm has a chef’s kiss of introduction, encapsulating what kind of film this is:

“Candace Cameron Bure is on a fake-snow-covered set shooting a church scene for her new holiday movie, A Christmas…Present, when it comes time for her character to feel the sudden presence of God. A tech guy stands on a ladder, waggling two plates of glass in front of a light to create a shimmering effect on her upturned face. The crew uses black electrical tape to outline the church’s stained-glass cross so it will pop on-screen. Mrs. Bure works herself into tears for each take, asking the crew to play an emotional Christmas song again and again so she stays in the mood…Mrs. Bure isn’t just selling a made-for-TV moment, but a Christian epiphany for the masses.”

Look, if you want your holiday spirit with a dose of the Holy Spirit, who am I to judge? But it’s Bure’s answer to the question of if the channel would feature same-sex couples that rankles: “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.” Everyone, even washed-up child stars exploiting God to make money on a cable channel, is entitled to their opinion. Even, I suppose, if that opinion normalizes faith-based bigotry.

Jojo Siwa was pissed. Stephanie Tanner said, “How rude.” I muttered a barely audible, “This bitch…” and continued to silently scroll through Twitter—my personal equivalent of an explosive fury.

Bure responded to the outrage with an exhausting essay blaming the media and the “toxic climate” for attempting to divide the country further. She expressed her disgust at the gall of everyone making this an issue, “even around a subject as comforting and merry as Christmas.” To her credit, she did display her bonafides as an outspoken Christian: She made this all about her own victimization and suffering. After some platitudes expressing love to the very communities she is ostracizing, she wrote, “We need Christmas more than ever.”

You know what? You’re darn tootin’ we do! And you know who loves Christmas? The gays! Themed outfits, non-stop dinner parties, and decorating? Shopping?! Christmas means different things to different people, and for some, it means watching two generically handsome actors dodge their overbearing mothers, fall in love while building a snowman, and then have exactly one (1) kiss on the lips at the end of the film underneath the mistletoe.

Again, none of this is particularly surprising. Great American Family was undoubtedly created to monetize a conservative political agenda, as always, under the guise of “faith.” Bure’s tenure on The View ended after she defended businesses’ right to turn away same-sex couples. (And, whoo-ee, wait until you Google some of the things her brother, Kirk Cameron, has said.)

I think maybe that’s why this is news: the obviousness of it. We like when people reveal that they really are who we thought they were—and then become confused when people react in kind. It’s so gratifying. It doesn’t happen enough.

The Full House lady wants to abolish the gays for Christmas? Sure! Of course! Now we get to make snide jokes about her on the internet, a holiday miracle if there ever was one.

Long Live the Chippendales

I have come to the conclusion that we as a society have failed the Chippendales.

My whole life, I was led to believe that the troop of male dancers was embarrassing. With their cheesy costumes—nothing but a bowtie, sleeve cuffs, and breakaway pants—they were portrayed as a pop-culture joke, immortalized by the Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley Saturday Night Live sketch. To attend one of their shows, even ironically, would be shameful. They were trotted out on daytime talk shows as the epitome of scandal.

Well, I will no longer be clutching my collar. After watching the new Hulu series Welcome to Chippendales, I have learned a few things. The Chippendales’ rise was a gender victory, normalizing female desire and sexual expression, and acknowledging that men could—and should—play a role in that pleasure. With that encouragement, they at least attempted to strip (heh) sexual shame away. Their dances were goofy, but often impressive. They put on a good show!

Moreover, they were about hotness. As a culture, we don’t celebrate hot people doing hot things enough! We’re always trying to silence hotness!

What I’m saying is that there is more than meets the eye to the Chippendales. The same is true of the Hulu show, which premieres Tuesday.

When Welcome to Chippendales was announced, it’s fair to say the giggly assumption was that we were going to get a semi-porny comedy about the silly male dancers; a poor man’s Magic Mike. What I don’t think anyone expected was a true-crime series, based on a real story.

The story of the Chippendales empire is that of an immigrant desperately seeking the American dream, but losing control of his ambition. Played by Kumail Nanjiani, Somen Banerjee (who later changed his name to Steve) saves up to buy his own club, only landing on male exotic dancing after seeing its financial potential by chance. An egotistical choreographer (Murray Bartlett), free-spirited costume designer (Juliette Lewis), and brilliant accountant (Annaleigh Ashford) all eventually team up with Steve to improve, legitimize, and expand the franchise.

There’s a dark underbelly of sex and drugs, and certainly of greed. There’s also a sweetness—Irene and Steve fall in love—and a hilarity: Lewis and Bartlett are a crackerjack pairing. But as the club flourishes, the series’ joy evolves into a portending doom. A Wikipedia search would explain why, but I would also caution against spoiling the storyline that becomes the crux of the series.

Girls’ Jenni Konner and Pam and Tommy’s Robert Siegel are Welcome to Chippendale’s showrunners. It was around when Tommy Lee’s anthropomorphized penis began talking to him in Pam and Tommy that I realized just how fun it is that subject matter once considered trashy or juvenile has now been elevated to the level of prestige TV. Welcome to Chippendales is further proof of that.

Give It the Oscar Now

Here is a running list of every time I gasped, squealed, winced, yelped, and cheered while watching the trailer for the cinematic event of our lifetime, the upcoming film 80 for Brady, which stars Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Lily Tomlin as octogenarians who are obsessed with Tom Brady and journey to watch him play in the Super Bowl.

The first shot of the four of them together. Jane Fonda’s wearing the fakest wig I’ve ever seen in any film. When Jane’s character explains that she writes Rob Gronkowski erotica (in a better but still shocking wig). Rita shoplifting a life-sized cardboard cutout of a football player, and then hitting on it. Sally making a joke about a strap-on. Harry Hamlin shows up!

Lily dabs. Guy Fieri shows up!!! Jane and Harry Hamlin making out. Billy Porter is in this too? Billy Porter leads them all in a dance. When they do a synchronized cheer for Tom Brady. Rita takes acid by accident and hallucinates a roomful of Guy Fieris. The last words of the trailer: Rita saying, “I’m Guy Fieri?”

Watch the trailer here.

Some Royal Concerns

There is movement, finally, on a third Princess Diaries film. At first, I cheered so loud you could hear me in Genovia. Assuming the deals get made, I can’t think of more of a delight than getting Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews back for another one of these movies. The Crown wishes!

But then I remembered how ho-hum all these straight-to-streaming sequels and reboot series have been for so many beloved, nostalgic properties, and I changed my mind. We must protect Crown Princess Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi at all costs. Keep her far away from this.

A Very Serious Wakanda ForeverTalking Point

It has come to my attention that 10 seconds of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is being censored in Kuwait because of a gay kiss. It turns out that is not the most homophobic thing to happen to this movie.

They flattened Namor’s dang penis.

#BringBackThePenis. We must get this trending.

Obsess over it!

Limitless: A bunch of scientists keep trying to kill Chris Hemsworth. It’s surprisingly moving. (Now on Disney+)
The People I Hate at the Wedding: Kristen Bell, Ben Platt, and Allison Janney in a family comedy. A present to me. (Now on Amazon)
The Menu: It’s creepy and it’s funny and it’s got Ralph Fiennes. (Fri. in theaters)

Disenchanted: It gives me no pleasure to report! (Now on Disney+)
Spirited: Insert “bah humbug” joke here. (Now on AppleTV+)

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