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HBO, repeatedly on multiple times or on demand
While Queen Latifah may never come out and say she’s a lesbian, her performance as the great bisexual blues singer Bessie Smith is so raw, honest, sexy and believable I really don’t care. She’s made a great film about a queer icon. Bessie went from dirt poverty in Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century to become one of the highest paid black performers of the 1920s. The film of her life shows Bessie doing this out of sheer force of will, from demanding Ma Rainey (Mo’nique) train her, to bedding the women and men she wants, from chasing down Ku Klux Klan members who threaten her show, to belting the blues with gale force winds. Out director Dee Rees transitions easily from the micro-budgeted lesbian coming-of-age film Pariah to this stylish, star-studded (Khandi Alexander and Michael Kenneth Williams co-star) period drama. But it’s Queen Latifah who owns the film. It’s not only her greatest performance, but one of the best on TV this year.
