Is American Gigolo Doing It For Us?

Sarah Baker returns for Showtime's re-imagining of the 1980 Gere movie.

Forty-two years after Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo pioneered the sex-worker neo-noir micro-genre, Showtime’s limited series of the same name is trying it again — and returning guest Sarah Baker joins us to talk about tone problems; weird directing choices; pervasive misogyny that’s even more tiresome than usual; MVP Rosie O’Donnell; and whether Jon Bernthal should have gotten better writing to work with. We went Around The Dial with Monarch, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Animal Kingdom, Cobra Kai, Severance, Big Brother, and Rings Of Power before Baker screwed up her courage and asked the Canon to PEN15‘s first-season episode, “Dance.” Lee Jung-jae won, Dick Wolf lost (while John Oliver won), and a non-regulation Game Time about TV sex work was NOT considered especially heinous. Slow that disco standard way down for extra poignancy; it’s an all-new Extra Hot Great.

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