Why do we have sex? It’s almost a trite question. Of course, it’s more than just for pleasure or reproduction — it’s often for power, intrigue, money, or even just something to do. But how often do we do the work of untangling these reasons? What are the consequences of leaving these knots? American Gigolo, Showtime’s contemporary retelling of Paul Schrader’s 1980 neo-noir film starring Richard Gere, attempts to lay some of these concerns before us, just as the original movie did. With a slightly different plot, a modern setting, a longer format, and no involvement from Paul Schrader himself, however, many of these problems have become far more complicated.
In the first episode, we are introduced to Julian Kaye, our American Gigolo played by Jon Bernthal, at his most vulnerable. In the immediate aftermath of a still-vague murder, Kaye is interrogated by Detective Sunday, played by Rosie O’Donnell in a traditional hardened detective role. Kaye has just been caught covered in blood next to the dead body of one of his female clients whose throat has been slit, and while he sobs and protests that it wasn’t him, Sunday insists he did it. From the start, the show sets itself off on its own story distinct from the film, hinging heavily on understanding how and why Kaye got framed in such an extreme manner.
We get some sense of the original film’s sequences, like in an early sexy little montage of Kaye driving around Los Angeles, schmoozing with glamorous women, and rendezvousing in motel rooms, all while “Call Me” by Blondie, made for the movie, plays. We’re quickly brought back to this new world, however, when this montage is followed by a cut to Kaye’s current reality in prison, where he works out, meditates, and is generally well-liked. He is even approached by a prison newbie who seeks Kaye’s help in ending the sexual assaults he is a victim to, though Kaye’s only suggestion is to present his sexuality as something given, not taken. Whatever plot is meant to unfold here is cut short as Kaye is proven innocent. And so, we have Julian Kaye back on the Los Angeles scene once more.
From here, the episode works to establish far more background and context into the history and development of Julian both as a person and as a sex worker than the movie provided. For example, upon his release, Kaye briefly returns to his childhood home in a dusty rural trailer park. We’re shown a flashback of Kaye as a young teen, then known as Johnny, forced to join an older female neighbor in her trailer under the guise of helping her unclog a sink. Kaye’s mother protests slightly but resigns her son to the woman’s predation. In the modern era, Kaye’s mother still lives here in squalid, hoarder conditions. He is kind and sympathetic to his mother but ultimately leaves without saying goodbye. In another flashback, we see his mother sell Kaye to a chic, worldly and wealthy madame who goes by the name of “the Queen.” The Queen then drives him to a Malibu mansion — women lounge topless, snort cocaine, and drink Champagne while “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” by Ol’ Dirty Bastard plays. A young man, Lorenzo, tells him it’s better here than sucking dick out on Santa Monica before he swan dives into the pool. Johnny meets a young girl, the Queen’s niece, who says, in a way that is too suspicious for an ostensibly seven-year-old child, that one day she will own him. Johnny returns inside, where the Queen puts a suit on him, tells him he’ll speak French one day, and dubs him “Julian.” All of this is actually a bit interesting and attempts to address some of the questions raised by the film — why is language learning so essential to gigolo duties? But it often felt like an attempt to weave in these original questions while adding too many new ones. If this is its own new story of Julian Kaye, let it be its own story.
With this background in line, the episode clumsily jumps between the year 2006 (Julian as an adult and successful and beloved hustler) and the present day, as he navigates life freshly out of prison in Los Angeles with no intention of returning to sex work. In Los Angeles, Julian meets back up with Lorenzo, played by Wayne Brady. Lorenzo is a true friend (at least for now) who has always maintained Julian’s innocence and held onto his prized possessions until his release. Lorenzo allows Julian to stay with him until he’s back on his feet. In the 2006 flashbacks, Julian meets Michelle, the love interest of the original film, a client turned authentic lover who must hide their affair from a powerful husband. For a time, Julian experiences sex for passion and love. We know little else about their relationship except that Michelle feels unhappy and ignored by her husband. In her contemporary life, that unhappiness continues and is heightened by a scandal involving her teenage son and his 32-year-old teacher. Though Michelle’s husband and his associates arrange to have the woman moved out of state, the two run off together. The same day, Julian appears in Michelle’s driveway to announce his release. She tells him about these issues with her child, then runs off, saying he needs to stay away.
Though the original murder has largely been solved in that the actual killer, a hitman, confessed before his death, Detective Sunday hasn’t given up on her hunt for the truth about who hired him and why. (She is the type of detective to repeatedly refer to a man as a “prick.”) For whatever reason, she clues Julian in with her continued progress in solving the impetus for the original murder case, which leads Julian and Lorenzo back to the home of the Queen as the episode nears its end under the guise of Julian returning to his gigolo role — Julian seems to believe that the Queen must be responsible for framing him. So the way to get revenge is by getting as close to her again as possible. As they enter the home, we see the Queen is now elderly and in a wheelchair, barely comprehensible. Strutting down the stairs, however, is Isabelle, the niece of the early flashback. Aggressively, she tells Julian to take off all his clothes. “What’s the matter? You get fucked in the ass too much in jail. You don’t remember how to fuck a lady?” she asks as he fails to do what she demands. He grows frustrated and eventually leads her to the bed and obliges her demand to show her what he’s got. The episode closes with Julian once again using sex as a means of getting what he wants. This time, however, it is on his terms, and what he wants more than money or status, it seems, is revenge.
Throughout the show, we are presented with the world through a lens through which women are in control. It is a landscape in which women it’s the women in power, perpetuating each action and capable of inflicting their dominance upon others for their own ends. Julian’s mother sells him for cash; his neighbor abuses him for pleasure; the Queen transforms him into a male escort for wealth; his later clients hire him for fun; Michelle confides in him for love; Detective Sunday convicts him and continues contact with him upon his release for some sense of justice. Even the plot around Michelle’s son centers upon the idea of a predatory older woman sexually assaulting a young man. It is not as though these story points are false or inaccurate, but undoubtedly, Julian is shown to live in a woman’s world. But that’s what makes the show and the film before it so interesting — we see a version of reality that, while real, is entirely foreign to many of us. After all, the gigolo concept forms the story’s first hook. With it, we’re offered a look into the world of sex work, a theme shared by recent shows like P-Valley and The Deuce and movies like Red Rocket, Hustlers, and Zola. So far, though, sex work remains only a secondary theme to American Gigolo, sidelined by hints of Julian’s trauma and his process of reentering the world. With this first episode, we’re offered a plethora of reasons (maybe too many) why people have sex and hints of the true motivations behind these reasons. But the actual work of sex and the ways it’s wielded remain knots to unravel.
Hustling
• Within the episode, we hear Blondie three times — two rounds of “Call Me” and one of “Heart of Glass” toward the end of the episode. Considering how many times it’s repeated in some form throughout the movie, it seems worth counting them out here, too.
• Why the hell did Michelle put on a wig halfway through the first episode?
• We’re eventually told the murder happened in 2006, but before this, we can guess by the fact that we hear a man in a lounge discussing how iTunes has just sold its billionth song, which occurred in February 2006. It’s a fun little anecdote, maybe something that might even come up in trivia, but one that still does not feel all that interesting. Perhaps, though, that just only highlights the distance between then and now.
• When we first met Lorenzo, some may suspect he is a stand-in for Leon, who in the original film ultimately betrays Julian by framing him for the murder but ultimately falls to his death off a balcony. It seems like maybe there is some parallel here, given that they’re both young Black male escorts that Kaye is supposed to have known since the beginning of his career, but so far, Lorenzo seems to be an entirely new character.
• Rosie O’Donnell is actually a great parallel to Hector Elizondo’s role of Detective Sunday in her demeanor and is one of the more exciting components of the overall show.
• Having extensively covered masculinity and sex work in my former role as a staff writer for MEL Magazine, I’m looking forward to seeing how these themes play out as the show progresses. On a much lighter note, I’m also hoping the show gets a bit sexier — the movie was among the first to show male nudity, and as prestige TV continues to feature more and more dick, American Gigolo ought to continue in this legacy.
