Reception
Critical reaction was mixed, though love it or hate it the majority of TV critics rampantly drew comparisons to the only hit show on the air at the time that featured gay characters, Will & Grace. The Los Angeles Times' Harry Rosenbaum opened his review with the lines, "First Will & Grace, now Will & Guido. Just about, anyway." Critic James Enderst similarly stated, "They're The Odd Couple of the 21st century. Or Will & Grace lite. You decide." New York Daily News critic David Bianculli stated, " Mapa plays Vern as a cross between Sean Hayes' Jack on Will & Grace and Suzanne Somers' Chrissy on Three's Company."
On the negative end of the spectrum, many critics denounced the show for being too formulaic. Hal Boedeker of The Orlando Sentinel called the show "hopelessly tired and old hat." Rosenbaum similarly stated, "Familiar stereotypes have always earned easy howls, from minstrel shows and old-time burlesque to political cartoons that deploy exaggeration as parody. The especially obnoxious ones ultimately fail when the multitudes realize their humor is not only hollow but at times twisted and even dangerous." Mapa later lashed back at that review in The Advocate saying, "I was totally slammed in the straight press... The L.A. Times called my portrayal 'dangerous.' But everyone in the gay community totally got it, because it takes one to know one."
On the flipside, many reviews were favorable, as were the critiques of the leads. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Rob Owen stated, "Some of My Best Friends trades on every Italian and gay stereotype possible, but it manages to make these zingers seem fresh thanks to strong performances from Bateman and Nucci." The New York Times' Neil Genzlinger misleading opened saying the show was "shameless in its use of hoary stereotypes. It brazenly reduces gay people, Italian people, Asian people and aging married people to caricatures in the interests of good ratings and corporate profits," but he then concluded, "It's often pretty darned funny."
Read more about this topic: Some Of My Best Friends
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)