Friday, Jul 25, 2008
The creator of "Nancy Chan, Manhattan Call Girl" assesses the hardworking boys of the new Fox TV show "The Street" and reveals that the senior guys have more fun.
Nov 1, 2000 | Fox TV's new series "The Street" -- billed as a "Sex and the City" for guys -- succeeded in offending before it had even aired: a PR-gasm by any other name.
Apparently, the people of Winchendon, Mass., were so offended by a billboard featuring a bit of breast and a slogan with much post-feminist attitude -- "They say Wall Street is a man's world. They're only half right" -- that the billboard had to be removed.
What was more annoying to the good politicians of Winchendon -- sex or greed? Wall Street's intrusive sexuality pushing and shoving its way onto Main Street? Or a chick brashly wearing a pair of men's briefs?
Sometimes, a billboard doesn't tell you what a show's really about, but this one indirectly gets at the sexual ambiguity running through at least one character's love life. Evan, the hippest guy at the fictional investment firm of Balmont Stevens, is a sensitive type with warm, lovable eyes -- the only male character (so far) who looks like he's ever read a novel. He knows something about pro-sex feminism, uses poetic pickup lines and makes knowing small talk about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Xena the Warrior Princess." (Naturally, this feminist guy in a suit is a Xena-phile.)
What's not to like -- when you compare him to the swaggering, insecure bullies and neurotic MBAs at Balmont Stevens, otherwise known as "the Balmont boys"? Evan meets his match when he woos Allison, an exotic dancer he meets at a co-worker's bachelor party.
In real life, we working girls (whether dancers or hookers) have all encountered Evan's type. He tries to endear himself to you by offering not to pay -- a trait that doesn't go over well with most hookers but does hit the spot with many dancers.
Allison, it turns out, has a thing for dungeon decor and wears a strap-on to bed. Though Evan is shocked at first, he's open-hearted enough to babble about the impact of this discovery with his buddies -- and gentleman enough to bring roses to their second date.
Millennial date etiquette: Be cool about her dildo collection and remember, you can't go wrong with red roses. (Though we never see Allison's sex toy, producer Darren Star and friends manage to show us by letting their male characters dish about it. As for the deeper questions -- Does Allison actually do Evan? Or is the dildo just a style choice? -- the viewer is allowed to believe whatever the viewer is comfortable believing. Some will find this prudish, but maybe it's kinkier to be coy. Whatever did or didn't happen on that first date, Evan comes back for more -- of what we're not quite sure. But something more than his office buddies can handle.)
Evan's not the central character -- Jack's personal life gets a lot more play in the pilot -- but who knows? Evan might develop a following among sex workers if he continues to date an exotic dancer. I can't help wondering: Will he pursue a serious relationship with Allison? Or will he wise up to what he "really" is and mate with an MBA bound for Greenwich, Conn., the way his buddy Jack has done?
The joke is that Evan tells Allison -- a vegan who does bachelor parties to pay for her degree -- that she's "a very unique person." Well, we can't expect Evan to know that kinky feminists who moonlight as exotic dancers -- along with drug-addicted streetwalkers and sexaholic call girls -- are regarded as a cliché in some circles. But I'm rooting for this budding romance to turn real, to challenge both Allison and Evan. We need to see a long-running complex relationship between a sex worker and her oh-so-respectable boyfriend, on network TV if possible. The 21st century demands it.
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