Nip/Tuck

I had to go away from Nip/Tuck last season because it went a bit crazy and took the salaciousness that makes it fun waaaaay the heck too far. But I'm back now and it's great!

Several issues to discuss. 1) Sanaa Lathan 2) Peter Dinklage 3) Scientology 4) Julian McMahon.

Allow me to work my way backwards.

Julian McMahon might be the most gorgeous person ever to live. Ever. Holy freaking crap that man is good looking.

Okay, now that everyone's thrown up a little bit, let me move on to the stuff that matters...or at least the stuff that this blog is about.

3) Scientology. Now religions don't really fall into the POC category, except maybe for Jewish folks. But then really only the orthodox since they're the only ones you can really spot in a crowd.

But Scientology has been in the news and such lately, and religion is a "diversity" issue, so I will take a few sentences to talk about it.

I'm fairly impressed with what they're doing with this storyline. Now, I'm not a Scientologist, but I am religious. And thanks to great folks like James Dobson, I hear about how my faith is a load of bigoty crap all the time. It gets tiring.

I don't agree with Scientology on so very many levels, but I do respect people who honestly hold on to their beliefs. There was a guy in my boxing class who outed himself as a scientologist after the class spent about 20 minutes talking about what a load of crap that 'church' is. He didn't make a stink, he didn't talk badly about anyone else, he simply said that Scientology worked for him. The conversation stopped pretty much altogether but it was very eye opening.

It's easy to make fun of, lambast and ridicule things we don't know about. Ideas we don't agree with. The South Park Scientology episode is wonderful and terrible for this reason. It's great because it's ballsy. Whenever I watch the show, I'm always impressed with what they don't mind skewering and sometimes, I'm even given things to think about. I'm sure their main focus is to be funny and crude, but Parker and Stone can't help but make decent commentary.

Terrible is the wrong word to describe the fault with that South Park episode. The problem with it is that it gives too many people an easy way to hate strangers. It makes fun of their beliefs without presenting a fair telling of the other side and so off go the rest of us non scientologists laughing and laughing and laughing, knowing that we can confidently shun those who believe in thetans and e-meters and never have to give them a second thought because, c'mon look how messed up their religions is.

Nip/Tuck is doing all of us a favor. Instead of giving us a cop out excuse to continue thinking the religion is full of crap. We see how one can become interested in such a group. Last week's episode had a great scene where Matt realizes he's about to be kidnapped and runs to the safety of his Scientology brothers who form a protective circle around him, not unlike deer sheltering their young from a lion.

The men are strong and Matt is scared. No words are exchanged, but the boy is protected. He feels safe and like he belongs. Who doesn't want to feel that from time to time.

Life is hard and all of us go through periods where we would love for someone to come along beside us, hold our hands for a while and tell us it's going to be okay. That happens rarely enough to make all of us suseptible to whatever may be lurking at work, or in Matt's case, at the gym, lying in wait for us to need help.

As religious person, I'm torn. The Christian in me wants for Matt to find a group that feels less like a cult. And the human in me totally understands what he's going through and kinda wishes I could join him. I'd love a circle of people waiting for me to be hurt so that they could heal me.

And so I'm challenged. My beliefs aren't shaken and I still hold to the values I believe to be true. But thanks to this telling of his story, I'm a little less cynical about those who choose otherwise.

2) Peter Dinklage

I thought the show was going to get by without discussing Dinklage's character's dwarfism. They did not. But the discussion was short and proved a point. Sean brings up Mr. Sawyer's "condition" as an insult. Saying that since he probably has a hard time with the ladies because he's small and that's why he was preying on Julia. Sawyer quickly schools him and we all feel a little bad because secretly, we were wondering the same thing.

But then Sawyer has a conversation with Julia where he discusses his dwarfism and says that his parents always hated it. It's sad and touching and we're forced to realize that for the most part, we haven't noticed Sawyer's height. Dinklage is a fine actor, sweet and tender in this role. He's so many things that his height doesn't matter, and when it's brought up in these scripts, it serves a purpose. It doesn't define the character like so often happens when someone is outside of the mold on TV. And it allows us to look at ourselves and our prejudices, which always makes for good TV.

3) Sanaa Lathan

I find Sanaa to be very intersting. I first saw her in Love and Basketball. She's never struck me as an overly friendly person, but her performances are always weighty even when the script isn't.

As a black woman, I'm thrilled about Sanaa's role on Nip/Tuck this season. She plays a surgeon/business owner/criminal/gold digger/former escort...yes, that's a lot of slashes, but aren't we all just a ton of slashes.

She is winning the heart of one Christian Troy and trying to fend off her sketchy past. She's trying to do right by herself, but it's hard. And her cold, but meaningful acting style makes us feel for her even if we're a bit put off at the same time. There's something behind her eyes, and she's gonna make you work to see it.

This is exactly the kind of role that needs to be doled out to minorities more often. Her race is mentioned in passing (Christian says something about "brown sugar.") but it doesn't define her as a person. She speaks with her accent which is both refined, ethnic, powerful and womanly. She's married to a white guy in the show--the interracialness of their marraige is never brought up--probably overshadowed by his testicle transplant. She plays a top notch escort con-woman and men of all kinds fall for her beauty. There is no discussion at the bar when she picks up a client about how he's fulfilling a fettish. They find her beautiful and that's all there is.

Nip/Tuck does a great job with its casting....well, there is that Cuban gang stuff going on...i should watch those episodes again...But in this Miami, evil suits everyone in top tier designer labels. Good and bad are equally distributed among all races, disfigurations and conditions so that characters can explore what people actually are and not what box they check on voter registration forms.