2D z FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019 z USA TODAY LIFE
A new four-episode mini-season of
“Queer Eye” is now streaming on Netflix,
and for the first time, the Fab Five ven-
tured outside of the U.S. Their destina-
tion? Tokyo!
Hosts Antoni Porowski, Jonathan
Van Ness, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk
and Tan France champion four new he-
roes during their time abroad. While
their tactics are similar – giving much-
needed confidence boosts in addition to
beauty and fashion makeovers – the
change in locale gives the series a cre-
ative reset and the opportunity to edu-
cate audiences about elements of Japa-
nese culture, too.
Brown says they were fearful be-
cause of the language barrier, even with
a translator.
But “luckily, with my skills, I was able
to read body language,” he says. “I was
really able to connect, and you could see
the emotional breakthrough that people
were having.”
Here’s a look at what you can expect
from the new “Queer Eye” episodes from
interesting places and celebrity cameos
to how much you’re going to cry (spoiler
alert, but not really: a lot, as usual).
Episode One: Japanese Holiday
Quick preview: Yoko, a 57-year-old
private hospice nurse, is the first hero
we meet in the series. Her sister died in
the hospital, and she doesn’t want her
patients to go through a similarly lonely
experience. She started a community
center next door to the hospice but
needs help sprucing it up, while making
time for herself. “It’s nice to be told that I
need to love myself,” she says.
Celebrity you’ll meet: Model and ac-
tress Kiko Mizuhara is the hosts’ Tokyo
tour guide, showing the gang cool sights
of the city. In this episode, she explains
that for Japanese women, the percep-
tion is that if you’re not stylish in a con-
ventional sense, you’re seen as giving
up on being a woman. Yoko says that if
women her age stand out,people view
that in a bad way; her biggest goal now is
to feel free and open.
Cry factor: 7 (out of 10). Any time Yo-
ko talks about her sister, you’re going to
want to call your siblings. You’ll cry hap-py tears when Yoko says “yes queen.”Episode Two: Crazy in LoveQuick preview: Kan, 27, is struggling
to be out and proud in Japan. He went to
college in Canada and graduate school
in London (where his boyfriend, Tom,
lives), but says living in Japan is difficult
due to his sexuality.
Interesting place you’ll see: Kiko
takes the group to New Sazae, a gay bar
that’s been open since 1966, which Fred-
die Mercury apparently visited. Kiko be-
lieves it’s the earliest gay bar in Ni-
Chome, one of the biggest gay districts
in Tokyo.
Celebrity you’ll meet: While Kan
loves Beyoncé, the queen herself
doesn’t make an appearance. Kodo
Nishimura, a Buddhist monk who’s also
a makeup artist, joins Karamo and Kan
for a heartbreaking conversation about
both queer and racial identity.
Cry factor: 10/10. This one prompted
bawling. Seeing Tom and Kan reunite,and Kan’s family being so accepting,
will send you reaching for a second box
of tissues. Featuring Japanese LGBTQ
people is a landmark moment for the se-
ries: Same-sex marriage is illegal in Ja-
pan.Episode Three: The Ideal WomanQuick preview: Kae, 23, is a manga
(comic book) artist and has dreams of
creating her own. She’s afraid of failure,
and a history of bullying has left her
with low self-confidence and body im-
age concerns.
Interesting custom you’ll see: Ev-
eryone tries their hand at judo, the Jap-
anese martial art.
Celebrity you’ll meet: The comedian
Naomi Watanabe talks to Kae about be-
coming stronger and using others’ nega-
tivity as fuel for her own power.
Cry factor: 9/10. Karamo asks Kae to
draw herself, but she has trouble doing
so; she’d rather draw what she wishes
she looked like. Once she finally does,
we also wanted to try drawing ourselves
but were afraid of splotching our art
with tears. Also, heads up if you have a
difficult relationship with your mother –
you’ll experience all kinds of triggers as
Kae and her mom work through frac-
tured communication.Episode Four: Bringing Sexy BackQuick preview: Makoto, 35, is a radio
director stuck in a sexless marriage. Will
the group be able to help save Makoto’s
relationship and help him embrace his
fun-loving personality?
Interesting custom you’ll see: Bob-
by helps Makoto learn about ikebana,
the art of simplistic, beautiful Japanese
flower arrangements (and they, along
with an “ikebana master,” Shiho, get to
practice).
Cry factor: 9/10. When Makoto and
his wife Yasuko say they love each other,
there’s no hope you’ll make it through
the rest of this episode without hitting
pause and taking a quick breather to
process.STREAMING
‘Queer Eye’ gang goes to Japan
David Oliver
USA TODAY
Everyone tries his hand at judo, the Japanese martial art.NETFLIX PHOTOSA new four-episode mini-season of
“Queer Eye” is streaming on Netflix.You haven’t seen Harriet Tubman like
this.
In the new film “Harriet,” in theaters
Friday, expect a young, fiery depiction
of the American icon, who escaped slav-
eryonly to return to the South repeated-
ly as a conductor known as “Moses” on
the Underground Railroad.
In “Harriet,” the American heroine
who helped roughly 70 slaves reach
freedom through a network of safe
houses is portrayed by stage actress
Cynthia Erivo, who earned a 2016 Tony
for her performance as Celie in Broad-
way’s “The Color Purple.” (Fun fact: Eri-
vo is about 5-foot-1, just an inch taller
than Tubman was.)
With thrillerlike pacing and daring
plantation runs, the film charts Tub-
man’s evolution from an illiterate slave
to an abolitionist and Union spy during
the Civil War.
“She was incredibly brave, and fast
and strong. She had the makings of a
real-life superhero, which she was,”
“Harriet” director Kasi Lemmons says.
So how much of the historical drama
is accurate? We checked in with Lem-
mons and historian Kate Clifford Lar-
son, who consulted on “Harriet.”
Did an enslaved Tubman
really hire a lawyer?
In “Harriet,” Tubman (known then as
“Minty”) confronts her slave owners af-
ter hiring a lawyer, insisting that her
family’s freedom had been promised by
the landowners’ great-grandfather. Did
she really do that? “She did!” Larson
says. “She earned the $5 to pay for the
attorney to investigate an old will.
Someone in the family had known ...
that when Harriet Tubman’s mother
turned 45, she was supposed to be set
free.”
There is one Hollywood flourish
though, the historian says: The will de-
creed that Tubman and her siblings
should be set free when they, too, turned
45 – not at the same time as their moth-
er. Under threat of being sold further
South, Tubman escaped in 1849, jour-
neying nearly 90 miles to get to Penn-
sylvania.
Did Harriet Tubman
typically carry guns?While Tubman is often pictured as a
reserved senior, “Harriet,” depicts the
freedom fighter as a youthful, and yes,
gun-toting heroine. “Why do our heroes
have to be warm and fuzzy and palat-
able with all their edges taken off? “
Lemmons asks. “We are a very brave,
very strong people and we have had
fierce leaders. Martin Luther King Jr.
had edge, and so did Harriet.”
It’s why images of Tubman holding
firearms run through “Harriet,” as she
relied on weapons for both protection
and intimidation for slaves who danger-
ously got cold feet mid-run. “She told
people that before they ran: ‘Once we go,
there’s no going back,’” the director
says.Did the real Harriet Tubman
have psychic visions?In the film, Tubman is portrayed as a
deeply religious woman whose psychic
visions aided her dangerous journeys
on the Underground Railroad.
In real life, “she was intensely faith-ful. That strong sense of faith was
somewhat typical on the Eastern Shore,
that Methodist kind of intensity,” Lar-
son says. As for her dreamlike visions,
an overseer struck Tubman on the head
with a heavy weight as a 13-year-old,
and she suffered seizures for the rest of
her life. Tubman believed those seizures
were prophetic. “She believed that God
was speaking to her and guiding her,
telling her what to do and protecting
her,” the historian says.Was Joe Alwyn’s character
in ‘Harriet’ real?In short, not really. In the film, Harri-
et is chased by her slave owner’s venge-
ful grandson, Gideon (Joe Alwyn), with
whom she grew up. While Gideon’s
mother, the plantation matriarch Eliza
Brodess (played by Jennifer Nettles)
“was known as a pretty nasty person,”
says Lemmons, history has given only
slight references to her son, Jonathan.
So filmmakers took creative liberty fill-
ing in Alwyn’s character.
What Lemmons did know is that Jon-
athan took the slaves to market when
young. “And I started to think, what is itlike to take people your age or younger
and sell them?” she says. Though cruel
and conniving on screen, in real life Al-
wyn is “the sweetest guy in the world,
the filmmaker adds. “He’s the most gen-
tlemanly person.”How often were slaves
caught by black trackers?In “Harriet,” white and black trackers
work together to catch slaves running
north. That really happened, Larson af-
firms, though in “much fewer” numbers
than white slave hunters. But for some
free blacks, the money wasn’t easy to re-
sist, she said. In those days, “you could
buy a farm for $400 and feed your fam-
ily and live a good enough life. All you’d
have to do was go out and capture one or
two runaway slaves and you were set.
They were very uncommon but they did
exist, and it was a problem for the com-
munity.”Did Tubman dress like
a man to escape notice?In the film, Tubman’s sharp intelli-
gence is on display, along with the varie-
ty of disguises she employed, from
dressing like a man to donning clothes a
middle-class free black woman would
wear.
This really happened. “She did talk
about it ... that she did sometimes dress
in disguise, either she could wear men’s
clothing, or dress as an old woman, or
dress as a middle-class woman in fine
clothes, because white people wouldn’t
suspect she was necessarily a slave,”
Larson says.MOVIES
‘Harriet’ plies the truth about Tubman
Andrea Mandell
USA TODAY
Cynthia Erivo stars as abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic “Harriet.”
GLEN WILSON/FOCUS FEATURESHarriet Tubman, circa 1860-1875.
H.B. LINDSLEY/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS VIA AP