Hung: The Male Prostitute

Oh Hollywood, you lovable scamp you. You can always count on Hollywood to be so ironic and subversive that it’s very nearly mind blowing when they stumble on an idea and bring it to the small screen in an edgy new dramedy. And now HBO is taking on prostitution.

Being HBO< the new show is obviously not about ladies. It’s about a dude who sells his sausage to hungry lady folk and it’s called Hung because the dude has quite the epic penis. Sounds like run of the mill stuff so far, right? Well, it’s all edgy and new because it’s a male prostitute and you never see those and HBO is always cutting edge and never makes bad shows, unless you count everything it did before the Sopranos started. But that’s neither here nor there.

The interesting thing about the show is that, for starters, it’s HBO. And that means even if halfway through each episode a monkey comes out and picks its ass for the remainder of the episode, critics are going to love it and it’s going to be nominated for awards. It’s going to be huge.

So here we have a huge new show and it’s about prostitution. Thoughts? Comments? Indeed, while it could be argued Sex and the City was a show about 4 old, ugly prostitutes, the fact is a show featuring a male prostitute is probably not going to really gain much attention beyond its critical acclaim and in the right wing religious camp who hate anything not on PBS. But for the rest of us, we’ll be forced to forever wonder how we live in a society that so comfortably embraces double standards.

Shows and films about escorts and prostitutes, that in any way glamorize or even remotely accept that lifestyle, are vilified. Horribly. The trend lately has been to demonize the profession and show that stark, lonely reality so the viewer can disapprove of the lifestyle but still sympathize with the woman because she’s so hard done by. If Pretty Woman was made today she’d have a heroin addiction.

If you make a show about a male prostitute, however, it’s edgy and new. He’s not a victim, he’s not glorifying sex, he’s zany and outside-the-box. His day job is as a basketball coach. You know, based on that, he’s going to end up fucking the mother of one of his players at some point, guaranteed. The creators of the series said this – “We approach it as Ray's journey to reclaim his manhood by joining the world of women.” Try to imagine, for even a second, someone making a show about an escort using that kind of description to accompany it. It’s about this waitress who moonlights as a high-priced callgirl. We tried to approach it as a journey to reclaim her womanhood by joining the world of men. Please send death threats care of HBO.

The fact is this would never fly if it were about a woman. It would be torn apart and stomped into the mud. No one likes sex and prostitution in the media, except they do. They just can’t say they do. So the only way to tolerate it is if it’s packaged in a fun, new way. Don’t give us Pretty Woman, give is the Girlfriend Experience. Don’t give us escorts, give us male prostitutes on HBO.

Anyway, may be worth watching. Maybe not. It’s about a dude after all, who wants to see that?