Review of Sordid Lives

Sordid Lives: The Series, a “prequel” project to the 1999 cult movie Sordid Lives (which was itself based on Shores’ play of the same name), is the story of one wacky — and very Texan — family. Many of the characters are in therapy, in prison, or in a mental institution — and if they’re not, they should be. Expect lots of country music playing on jukeboxes and women gnawing on fried chicken with their hair done up in curlers. There’s even an angelic visit from the ghost of Tammy Wynette (played by Wynette’s real-life daughter).

Jordan (left) with Georgette Jones

No doubt the juicy, over-the-top nature of these characters is exactly what drew this stellar cast to a low-budget project for the small, gay, cable network Logo (which owns AfterElton.com). The characters are deliciously exaggerated and played for laughs. As an actor, you’d have to be crazy to walk away from lines like “My mamma told me that masturbation causes you to go blind, and every time you did it a little baby kitten would die.” Or, “Why do people say ‘he could be dead in a ditch’? I’ve never known one person to die in a ditch! I’ve heard of people drunk in a ditch.”

Why is the story of this very Southern family on a “gay” network in the first place? Well, it purports to all be told from the point-of-view of Ty, the sexually-ambiguous son of Bonnie Bedelia’s Latrelle, a character apparently based, in part, on Shores himself. (Ironically, the character of Ty is played by Jason Dottley, an appealing, open-faced actor who happens to be Shores’ real-life husband.)

Jason Dottley

As for Sordid Lives: The Series’ portrayal of Southern attitudes and characters, it’s less like King of the Hill, with that show’s affectionate embrace of its characters and its merely mild teasing of Texans, and more like My Name is Earl, which openly mocks Southern characters and attitudes, and definitely trades on long-standing stereotypes. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your view of the South. Then again, Sordid Lives: The Series is written by Shores, a Southerner himself, and is based on his life, so the pointed ribbing is at least based on personal experience.

Sordid Lives: The Series is not perfect. While the characters and performances are great, and a lot of dialogue is funny, less care seems to have been taken with other writing elements. Storylines in the first two episodes don’t interweave, building on each other, and they don’t end with any real resolution. Instead, Sordid Lives: The Series meanders through various scenes highlighting the different characters, a little like the soap operas that Noleta watches and dreams could be her life.

Meanwhile, the cast is, quite frankly, too large, offering too many characters to take in and too many storylines to follow. Perhaps LaVonda will play some essential role in future episodes, but it was hard to see her function here, except that she must have existed in the movie upon which the series is based. And while it’s great to hear Olivia Newton-John speak in a Southern accent (not to mention hearing her sing the haunting theme song), she too has little to do.

Olivia Newton-John (left) & Rue McClanahan