Perfect Lies (1998)

Q-Force (2021) follows agent Steve Maryweather (Sean Hayes). After comming out as gay during his academy graduation, Steve gets undermined by the American Intelligence Agency. They send him to West Hollywood where he gets no fieldwork. Flash forward a decade, and Maryweather (often just called “Mary”) accumulates a team of talented people onto his squadron that also all happen to be queer.

There is a lot of controversy around Q-Force. It’s certainly not hard to see why — the series is quite hyperbolic. I will say, that was the first aspect I noticed on my initial watch. Right from the get-go, Q-Force barrages you with gay joke after gay joke. This is hit or miss throughout the series.

While I can’t deny the show managed to get a few chuckles out of me, a lot of the comedy is ham-fisted and self-deprecating. I'll come out and say it: If it wasn’t for the series creator Gabe Liedman being gay himself, I would find the humor wildly inappropriate. There are a ton of jokes that rely on stereotypes. Essentially, a large portion of the comedy in Q-Force can be boiled down to, “Haha! They're queer people being queer!” We see this with Deb (Wanda Sykes) and her wife enjoying “typical” lesbian interests such as chiropracty, pitbulls, barbecues — things that get easily stereotyped within that aspect of queer culture. The dialogue becomes unnatural in attempts at being funny, like in episode two when someone says “Get our dyke on." It’s so awkward to hear.

The most glaring aspect is one of the main characters names, “Twink” (Matt Rogers). Like, come on now. How much more on the nose could they be? I guess the “joke” is that he’s named after his archetype? It’s not very creative, or funny for that matter. Also, calling our lead by “Mary” so constantly has to be a cheap shot at humor too, right? When watching The Secretaries' Ball with a friend who had missed earlier episodes, they pointed out how jarring it was hearing old white men in positions of power grunting “Mary” at our protagonist. When I explained it was a nickname, they commented how that was a weird choice.