More than Man Enough

I first became aware of Buck Angel nearly two decades ago, while perusing videos on TitanMen.com (I’m a patron of the arts). Buck was featured in the 2005 video Cirque Noir (only watch at work if you’ve already turned in your two weeks’ notice), but the trailer is very discreet about what makes Buck stand out from his porn star brethren. I ultimately passed on the video because fisting, but the Cirque Noir trailer did pique my interest in this Buck Angel guy. That’s when learned Buck Angel is not like other men.

Buck Angel is “a man with a pussy.”

I’ll admit my interest in Buck Angel the porn star pretty much ended there (I like dick, OK?), but several years later, when director Dan Hunt’s 2013 documentary MR. ANGEL hit Prime, I decided to learn more about Buck Angel the man, for reasons I’ll elaborate on later.

Like the Cirque Noir trailer, the first few minutes of Mr. Angel are coy about what makes its subject unique. Scenes of Buck in the shower, shot from the shoulders up, touching up his bald pate with a razor are intercut with home movie footage of Buck as a little girl, let us know he’s trans, and Buck lets a Berlin cab driver (and audience) know that he’s in the sex industry, telling the driver that he prefers Berlin’s openness with sexuality (“[The U.S. is] very scared of naked people,” he laughs). It’s not until Buck arrives at his Berlin destination, the Venus Show, where a life-size poster of him nude adorns the wall of his booth, that the audience learns what made Buck unique among porn performers of that time.

Buck Angel’s beauty regimen.

At first, he seems surprised by the poster or, rather, that event organizers went with such a graphic image, but he’s happy with their choice as it confronts attendees at the Venus Show with his exceptional anatomy. “With pants on I just look like a dude.”

Buck Angel with his co-workers.

Just another day at the Venus Show.

It’s getting to know the Buck Angel with his pants on that is the primary focus of the documentary. Though there are many segments focusing on Buck Angel, porn performer, Mr. Angel is not a porn documentary. Instead, it shows audiences that while Buck may not have the genitals of a cis-gendered man, and his job isn’t a typical 9-5 office gig, he is, basically, just a dude, albeit one who must see a gynecologist.

Buck’s a pretty likable guy. Quick to laugh, thoughtful and, considering some of the shit he’s had to deal with, remarkably positive. I mean, these people might not like him but fuck them.

Bored now.

Yet even in the world of adult entertainment people can’t see the man for the pussy. A meeting Buck has with Lucas Entertainment founder Michael Lucas proves disheartening, the pouty-lipped porn star/mogul, who has made a video catering to fart fetishists, sees little market value in videos featuring a man with female genitalia. No cock, no sale.

“Just because I have a pussy does not make me not a man,” Buck says, later asserting, “I’m not an ‘it.’”

For the record, Buck says he decided against bottom surgery because penises created in the operating theater just aren’t up to snuff. Given that phalloplasty sounds like a grueling ordeal to go through only to wind up with dick that can’t even get hard without use of a prosthetic, it’s easy to see why he’s better off just using a strap-on.

Buck shows off his tattoos.

Still, it’s not easy for people to understand how someone can identify as one gender while having the parts of another. I certainly didn’t, which is what led me to watch this documentary initially. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get the message my first watch.

Learning I was the Asshole from a Man with a Pussy

I don’t come out well in this story, but here goes. Way back in 2012, my husband and I were having lunch with some friends. At the table was a friend who came out as trans a year earlier. I’ll call him Frank. Frank was in town for the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta, and he mentioned seeing Buck Angel, who was a featured guest at the conference that year. This is when I decided to make what I thought was good point: “But Buck Angel still has a vagina. Would ‘he’ even count as a trans man?”

Yes, I said that. Aloud.

Buck Angel is poised and ready to blow narrow minds.

It was a stupid comment. I know this now. It was uttered in ignorance, not malice. This probably doesn’t make it better, but I kind of meant it as a joke. Frank, however, didn’t take it that way. “Why should that even matter!?” he asked angrily, and a bit too loudly for my comfort. I, in turn, reacted like a Boomer comedian told his rape joke was offensive and tried to justify my wrong-headed observation (i.e., that unless a person got top and bottom surgery, they were merely transvestites), which only made Frank more indignant. I recall someone else at the table—not my husband, BTW—making a clumsy attempt to defend me, but all that did was draw fire until someone else mercifully changed the subject.

My ignorant comment was a teachable moment. If society is grappling with the concept of nonbinary identities now, they weren’t even acknowledged in 2012. We didn’t even know the word nonbinary existed. Even within the LGBTQ+ community there was a reluctance to embrace the “Ts.” Unfortunately, instead of explaining the dynamics of gender identity, Frank chose to dress me down for being a transphobe. The lesson I learned that day? Don’t talk to trans people.

I didn’t say much for the remainder of that lunch, and I was the first to announce our departure (my husband had to leave with me; I was his ride). Months later, when there was another get-together occasioned by Frank being in town, I declined to attend. In fact, a full year passed before I agreed to be in the same room as Frank, and while he didn’t appear to have any hard feelings—our previous interaction was never even brought up—I was still wary, and chose my words carefully in his presence, if I spoke at all.

MTF performer Wendy Williams and
FTM performer Buck Angel are about to
fuck with viewers’ minds in Buck Fever.

That humiliating lunch with Frank was very much on my mind when I decided to watch Mr. Angel the first time. Consequently, I was less interested in being educated than vindicated. And I thought I was. Early in the documentary, MTF porn performer Wendy Williams (not the beleaguered former talk show host) comments that even she was perplexed by Buck Angel. “I was doing all the things that make me mad,” she admits, like using the wrong pronouns. I took Wendy’s admission as absolution. I wasn’t the bad guy! Even other trans people questioned whether Buck Angel really “counted” as a man.

Except, that’s not what Wendy said. Wendy herself hasn’t had bottom surgery. It wasn’t until I rewatched the documentary for this review that I realized her shock had nothing to do with Buck’s identity. She just hadn’t seen “a man with a pussy” before watching one of Buck’s videos. Today there are entire websites dedicated to FTM performers; they were still an anomaly in the early 2010s. 

My repeat viewing of Mr. Angel made me reassess that cringey lunch in 2012. I had to face the fact that Frank might have been unfair, but he wasn’t wrong. I was the asshole.

It would be nice to say that I’ve since reached out to Frank with my belated understanding, but it’s too late for such tidy closure. Frank died of a heart attack in 2018.

Transitioning from Porn to Activism

If I had trouble wrapping my head around Buck’s gender identity, it was doubly so for his family. “It’s easier for me to deal with the transgender side than it is the porn side,” his sister Tracey says. “I almost feel it’s like you hit people once with being transgender, now you smack them again because you’re in porn.”

Buck Angel and his then-wife Elayne on Tyra Banks’ show.

His father Bill, whom Buck describes as a man’s man, had an especially hard time accepting Buck for who he is. Though Buck appears to have a good relationship with his parents at the time this documentary was shot, you can still see his father struggling to accept his son. Bill’s a good sport when they watch Buck being interviewed on Tyra, laughing when Buck tells Tyra Banks that he loves his vagina. But when Buck complains about the interview being on an episode focused on “sexual oddities,” Bill doesn’t understand the objection. “But you are…. ‘Oddity’ means you’re not with the norm.”

Selections from Buck’s 1980s modeling portfolio.

Angel-in-progress.

But while his family may not entirely understand Buck, they are grateful he’s still with them. He attempted suicide in his teens, which led to an extended stay in a psychiatric ward, during which his father never came to visit. As a young adult Buck found some success in the 1980s as a model, but the money from that also gave him the means to get drugs and alcohol. Addiction led to the end of the modeling career. Self-harm, homelessness and sex work quickly followed. His parents realized they were going to lose their daughter one way or another. Gaining a trans son was preferrable.

Buck’s mother Patty visits him during his recovery
from a hysterectomy.

“There are a lot of people like me,” Buck explains to his father. “I consider myself very normal. …I don’t want the world to go around thinking people like us aren’t normal.”

This is a hard sell now, and it was a hard sell then. Here’s a sampling from Buck’s inbox:

• You are one mixed-up individual. You need help, and bad.
• Well, I can’t really be nasty to you because you’re a girl, but people like you should be put to death.
• I hope you die of AIDS, you freak of society. You’re so arrogant and disgusting you have to change your sex trying to play God. I swear if I ever cross paths with you, I will have a gun and it’s going in your face.

Offsetting the hate mail are the messages from trans youth. Though many of them are asking for money to pay for their surgery, their messages also emphasize Buck’s position as a role model, something he embraces. He speaks on a panel at Yale (“It’s totally weird being here. I didn’t even fucking graduate high school.”) and posts videos about trans issues on his website, which he still does today.

Buck, his future ex-wife and their dogs relax at their home in Mexico.

The documentary itself serves as an extension of Buck Angel’s outreach. Buck may not be ordinary, but his day-to-day life appears perfectly normal, especially the scenes of him with his then-wife, body piercer Elayne, at their home in Mexico, where the couple moved after marrying in New Orleans. She seems wonderfully supportive (“That’s not a small cock, it’s a huge clit,” she helpfully explains to one middle-aged attendee at the Venus Show)—that is, until the cameras stopped rolling. A year after this documentary was released, Buck and Elayne divorced, very messily. Though she said in Mr. Angel that Buck was “the man of [her] dreams,” Elayne was suddenly a TERF in court, claiming their marriage wasn’t legal under Louisiana law because Buck never got bottom surgery, and therefore not a man, and not entitled to spousal support. The judge ruled against her.

Buck Angel, circa 2023.

Buck is still going strong. Now in his early 60s, he’s become a motivational speaker, hosts a podcast (saw that coming), and sells his own brand of sex toys. He’s still quick to laugh, still thoughtfully outspoken, and still just a dude.

Buck also sells merch, like this “Tranpa” mug.

Short Takes: ‘Addicted’ (2014) ★★

Not to be confused with Addickted (click at your own risk), because this adaptation of Zane’s 1998 book is for the ladies and therefore above such crudeness. The dick is merely implied.

And lead character, Zoe Reynard (Sharon Leal) is all about the dick, though, as she explains to her therapist Dr. Marcella (Tasha Smith, acting like an Oprah-bot), she has a very fulfilling life, with a loving (and very hot!) husband, two beautiful children, and she owns her own successful business merchandising artworks of up-and-coming artists. Plus, all her employees love her! Her assistant Shane complements Zoe’s fashion sense the moment she walks in the door, and her best friend/…um, I’m going to say vice president, Brina (Emayatzy Corinealdi), is so devoted to her job that she dismisses the very idea of Zoe paying her more to do it. There’s no sex and I’m already getting a semi just thinking about this woman’s life.

But Addicted wastes little time getting to the sex, showing Zoe and that hunky husband of hers, Jason (Boris Kodjoe) enjoying some hot R-rated boning less than 10 minutes in. After they come, Zoe reaches beneath the sheet for Jason’s sticky dong, asking if he’s ready for round three(!), only to be disappointed when Jason drifts off to sleep. (Lady, give him a chance to recuperate from round two; you two aren’t 18 anymore.) Then, just like that, Zoe deems her sex life boring and goes to her home office to get off to Internet porn, which she evidently does frequently as she keeps a vibrator in a desk drawer. Lord help her if her children or her mother—who lives with them to take care of the kids and give her daughter “hmm-hmm” looks—goes hunting for a pen.

That all changes when she meets famed (but, implausibly, never photographed) artist Quinton Canosa (William Levy) at Atlanta’s High Museum. Quinton understandably sets her girlie parts a-tingle, so it’s no surprise that she readily fucks him. Well, “readily” might be overstating it, as Zoe does try to push Quinton away, telling him that what they’re doing is not right, a protest he quickly silences by going down on her.

But Quinton is not enough. Zoe hits the clubs, hooking up with the dangerously sexy Corey (hey, it’s Tyson Beckford from Chocolate City) in a suspiciously vacant (and clean) restroom and sneaking out to join him at artfully lit sex parties. Zoe is so hooked on cock that she begins to neglect her family and her business. She knows she needs to quit both these guys, but she’s too busy getting rocks off to worry about hitting rock bottom.

Though it’s not the trash treasure I hoped for, I kind of enjoyed this one. The acting is fair, though Levy often comes off as smarmy rather than seductive. Director Bille Woodruff at least knows his audience, meaning Leal’s body is decoratively covered while her male co-stars’ are frequently exposed (no full frontal, but a fair amount of man-ass). As an Atlanta resident I had some fun spotting familiar locations on screen (I loved that the now-shuttered Radial Café, very much a casual dining spot in its day, is presented as a restaurant so exclusive it requires strict punctuality for reservations). What stops the movie from being satisfying trash is its uneven Lifetime-y script. Sometimes it’s the fun type of Lifetime movie, but too often it’s just bland, and its portrayal of sex addiction way too sanitized. There’s sex addiction, where otherwise respectable people pull trains with hobos on their lunch hour and sneak off after putting the kids to bed to go writhe naked in urinal troughs, and then there’s “sex addiction,” an affliction (primarily male) celebrities diagnose themselves with when they’ve been caught cheating (or worse). Zoe’s problem falls squarely in the second category, and no amount of last-minute daytime TV psychodrivel can convince the audience otherwise. 

The Bombs of Barbra

Among the many problems critics cited with the 1976 remake of A Star is Born—and they cited a bunch of them at the time—was the preposterousness of Barbra Streisand’s Lite FM pop winning over hard rock audience (mitigating factor: the rocker in question was played by country singer Kris Kristofferson, R.I.P.). To Barbra’s fans, however, this makes perfect sense. How could anyone not be won over by one of the most talented women of our time? Her fans were sold—I certainly was—and so A Star is Born became another one of Barbra’s many hit films and another fuck you to her critics.

But Barbra’s fans didn’t line up for everything she did. Though most of Barbra’s films were successful—her track record is pretty impressive—she did have a few bombs. So, while Barbra’s successes are being celebrated in the wake of her recently published door stopper of a memoir My Name is Barbra (also a hit), I thought I’d revisit her few failures, which is far easier—and faster—than reviewing that autobiography. (Nine-hundred and ninety-two pages? Oh, fuck no.) 

I’m going to bypass Hello, Dolly!, which, similar to Cleopatra, was both a box office hit (No. 5 on the list of top grossing movies for 1969) and a financial disappointment (i.e., it cost too goddamn much to make), though 20th Century Fox, as it did with Cleopatra, eventually recouped its investment. Instead, I’m jumping to Barbra’s first real flop, UP THE SANDBOX.

Margaret joins the other moms in Central Park.

Up the Sandbox just might be the closest Barbra ever got to making a small arthouse film. In this 1972 adaptation of Anne Roiphe’s 1970 novel, Barbra plays Margaret, a young New York housewife, married to a college professor (David Selby) who regularly escapes her stifling existence through vivid fantasies. Sometimes the fantasies are dark (joining a group of activists to blow up the Statue of Liberty), but most are played for laughs (Margaret pushing her nagging mother’s face into a birthday cake; increasing her breast size at will during a college faculty party).

Margaret's mother (Jane Hoffman) fights back.

Fidel Castro (Jocobo Morales) has a secret.

It's not a perfect film. The feminist messaging is a little too on-the-nose, some of the humor hasn’t aged well (“Oh my god, you’re a fag.”), and its conclusion isn’t entirely satisfying, but I still count Up the Sandbox among my favorite Barbra Streisand films. It’s certainly one of Barbra’s best performances. One of Barbra’s stumbling blocks as an actress, especially in more dramatic roles, is she can’t let us forget she’s Barbra Streisand, so her performances are always bigger than the character she’s playing. She also tends to be too self-conscious, unable to pick up a glass of water without making sure she’s showing off her manicure (as any Barbra fan knows, Babs just loves showing off her nails to the camera). It’s like director Irvin Kershner (the same one who directed this little sci-fi gem) told her to do what she usually does, just 10-15% less of it—and for once she trusted the director. As a result, she gives one of her most relaxed, natural performances.

Margaret prepares to blow up the Statue of Liberty, a scene
Barbra says likely would not be included were the film made today.

Margaret journeys to Africa with musicologist Dr. Beineke 
(Paul Benedict), but the natives are less than welcoming.

Too bad not a whole lot of people saw it. Reportedly audiences at the time were put off by how the fantasies were introduced. Instead of doing the standard harps and swirling dissolves to announce fantasy sequences, Kershner lets them happen organically, as if they are part of Margaret’s reality. It’s usually pretty easy to tell when a scene has segued into fantasy, but apparently this confused 1972 audiences, which hurt word of mouth. (Christopher Nolan would have had a very different career trajectory if he started making films in the early 1970s.)

Paul (David Selby) and Margaret get real.

The movie’s box office was further hurt by the fact that it is difficult to categorize. In the movie’s DVD commentary, Barbra describes the movie as “a drama with some laughs”—so, a dramedy. But the movie was marketed as a straight-up comedy, with a painting of Barbra, pregnant and looking startled, tied to a giant baby bottle. I like the poster, but it’s selling a wacky comedy like What’s Up, Doc?, released earlier the same year, not “a drama with some laughs.” The trailer didn’t help matters. As we’ll soon see, this won’t be the last time mis-marketing helped tank one of Barbra’s movies.

Did it deserve to bomb? No. It’s definitely worth seeking out if you’re a Streisand fan. Even if you’re not, you might still want to check it out as it’s not a typical Streisand film. It’s available for streaming. Those who prefer physical media will have to be content with a DVD, but if you go that route avoid Barbra’s commentary track, which adds little beyond proving she’s as self-absorbed as her detractors say she is.

‘A Little, European Kind of Film’

If there was any justice in the world, the next movie on this list would be 1979’s The Main Event, which I think is Barbra’s worst movie (for her co-star, the late Ryan O’Neal, worst was yet to come), but, no, The Main Event made money. Instead, Barbra’s second bomb detonated in 1981 with the release of the non-com ALL NIGHT LONG.

George Dupler (Gene Hackman) and Cheryl (you know who)
enjoy dinner at sunset.

All Night Long was originally meant to be a modest little comedy about George Dupler, a middle-aged exec for a drugstore chain who, after reacting violently to being passed over for a promotion, gets demoted to night manager of one of the company’s 24-hour stores. George then begins having an affair with Cheryl, the wife of his fourth cousin, who is also having an affair with George’s son Freddie (Cheryl, not George’s fourth cousin). Gene Hackman was cast as George, and Lisa Eichorn as Cheryl. It was the American debut of Belgian director Jean-Claude Tramont.

Gene Hackman wonders what the fuck happened
to his movie.

Unfortunately for the movie, Tramont was married to ’70s superagent Sue Mengers. Mengers represented Hackman, but her biggest client was Barbra Streisand. Mengers had wanted Barbra in the role of Cheryl from the beginning, but Barbra, then busily trying to get Yentl off the ground, passed. This didn’t stop Mengers, who began badmouthing Eichorn’s performance the moment she saw the early rushes (other people connected to the film said Eichorn was fine). Mengers’ behind the scenes fuckery is detailed fully in Brian Kellow’s biography of Mengers, Can I Go Now? (or you could just read an excerpt here), but the TL;DR version is that Mengers got Barbra to reconsider with a very persuasive $4 million payday, got Eichorn fired, and transformed her husband’s low-stakes project into A Barbra Streisand Film.

Loni Anderson says she was considered for the role Cheryl but was
beat out by Barbra. However, the one source I found that even mentions
Anderson in connection with this movie reports she was considered after 
Barbra initially turned the part down, meaning she lost the role to Lisa Eichorn.
Either way, she dodged a bullet (only to catch a much bigger bullet).

The 2004 DVD cover is closer
to the tone of the movie, but still
misses the mark. Also, did they
give Barbra a Photoshop nose job?

Except, All Night Long wasn’t A Barbra Streisand Film; Barbra was a co-star in a Gene Hackman film (All Night Long was the first time she got second billing). That didn’t stop Universal’s publicity department from making Barbra the focus of its marketing. “She’s got a way with men, and she’s getting away with it… All Night Long,” reads the poster’s tagline. Muddying the waters further is the accompanying art featuring Barbra sliding down a fireman’s pole with her skirt flying up à la Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, with Hackman, Dennis Quaid (as Freddie) and Kevin Dobson (as Cheryl’s hot-headed fireman husband Bobby) waiting below to catch her. A rollicking sex farce starring Barbra Streisand? This movie looks fun!

All Night Long is not a rollicking sex farce. It’s not that fun, or that funny. “It was really a little, European kind of film,” is how Barbra described it in Can I Go Now? She said she “felt totally betrayed” by the movie’s misleading ad campaign. Audiences also felt betrayed, and the movie quickly sank at the box office, making just under $4.5 million against its $15 million budget.

Dennis Quaid might actually be stoned in this scene.

All Night Long isn’t that funny, but it isn’t unwatchable, either. I’d describe it as a neutered Middle-Age Crazy or a second-rate Starting Over. It’s a direct-to-video movie before those were a thing. Barbra, wearing a Rona Barrett wig and push-up bras, manages to pull off the role of ditzy suburban cougar Cheryl, and it’s fun to see her play against type. Unfortunately, Cheryl isn’t a character so much as she is a collection of quirky behaviors: she rides a scooter; she has a love of the color lavender so obsessive that even her cigarettes are that color; she meticulously picks the raisins out of a cinnamon raisin Danish because she read somewhere you shouldn’t eat fruit and carbs together. In fact, most of the laughs Cheryl gets hinge on the fact that she’s played by Barbra Streisand, such as a scene in which Cheryl, composing a country song on an electric organ, proves to be a lousy singer, which got the movie’s biggest laugh when I saw it in the theater (I’m old, y’all!) Would this scene have worked if Lisa Eichorn was in the role of Cheryl? Probably, but the laughs likely wouldn’t have been as loud.

These alternate poster designs I whipped up aren’t masterpieces of 
graphic design, but they better convey the tone of All Night Long than
what Universal came up with. I made Gene Hackman's character the
focus, while Barbra is featured but not emphasized. The lazier design
on the right also makes it clear that Barbra is not the main character,
though I’m sure anyone presenting such a design in 1981 would be fired
on the spot. Sue Mengers and Barbra might even have the designer killed.

But most of the characters in All Night Long are underwritten, reduced to types rather than fully realized people, with only Hackman’s George getting fleshed out to any degree. In fact, the whole movie plays out like they were working from screenwriter W.D. Richter’s first draft. In addition to underdeveloped characters, there’s a satirical undercurrent about suburban malaise and the so-called American Dream that's never fully realized, either because Richter’s script never quite articulated it or Tramont never quite grasped it. In the end, All Night Long didn’t need Barbra to save it, it just needed rewrites.

Did it deserve to bomb? Yes, if only as an expensive middle finger to Mengers, who should’ve minded her own fucking business. (Mengers got an even bigger middle finger when Barbra dropped her as her agent shortly after. As for Tramont, he died in 1996 with only one other American directing credit, the TV movie As Summers Die.) I don’t dislike the movie—it’s way more watchable than The Main Event—but it’s hardly essential viewing. 

Cheryl enjoys one of her lavender-tinted cigs while Diane Ladd, as
George’s tight-assed wife Helen, seethes beneath her horrible granny helmet.

The Stars of Funny Girl and Pineapple Express,
Together at Last

Though Sue Mengers was the villain of the All Night Long debacle, she was reportedly one of the few people in Barbra’s life who could get away with calling the superstar out on her bullshit. And so, decades later, when the two women were again on speaking terms, it was Mengers who told Barbra to stop waffling and just accept the offer to star in THE GUILT TRIP, directed by Anne Fletcher.

“What do you mean you’re not holding?”

Seth Rogen is just as surprised as
you are that he is in a PG-13 movie.

The Guilt Trip was Barbra’s first starring role since 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, which she also directed (can’t forget that detail!), and, to date, her last movie. Yet upon The Guilt Trip’s December 2012 release Barbra's return to the big screen was met only with mixed reviews and polite applause. That said, I’m stretching the premise by counting it as one of Barbra’s bombs. The Guilt Trip wasn’t a hit, but it did eventually make back its $40 million budget plus some. It “underperformed” rather than flopped (though there’s still that marketing budget to recoup...).

Barbra plays Joyce, a widow who dotes on her adult son, Andy (Seth Rogen), a chemist and struggling entrepreneur. Though Andy finds Joyce’s attention stifling, he does worry about her being alone and invites her to join him on a cross-country drive from New Jersey to California, with him making stops at various retail chains along the way to pitch his environmentally friendly cleaning product, ScieoClean. Andy also has an ulterior motive: learning that Joyce's first love now lives in San Francisco, he plans a surprise reunion.

Andy begins to regret inviting his mother along for the ride.

The opening fifteen minutes of The Guilt Trip suggest it’s going to be little more than a 90-minute Jewish mother joke, but the movie has a bit more to it than that. Joyce is annoying but well meaning; Andy finds her overbearing and wishes she’d just shut the fuck up and give him some space—except when he needs her. Naturally, their relationship is tested, but by the time they reach the west coast their bond is stronger than ever. 

Joyce picks up a hitchhiker.

Barbra was perfectly cast as Joyce (she got a Worst Actress Razzie nomination for this movie, but like a lot of Razzie nominations, I suspect it was more than a little disingenuous, being more about taking Babs down a peg than it was about her actual performance). The wild card was Rogen, who in the early 2010s was known more for raucous/raunchy R-rated comedies like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. Would people buy him in a role where he never once takes a bong hit or makes a crude sex joke? (This PG-13 movie’s one allotted f-bomb goes to Barbra.) Rogen’s persona at the time had me thinking that Bette Midler would be a more believable movie parent for him, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well he and Barbra play off each other. They’re actually believable as mother and son. If only they were funnier.

Andy and Joyce celebrate her competitive gluttony victory. On the far
right is Brett Cullum as Ben, a cowboy who is apparently into older
women who like to eat.

It's not that The Guilt Trip is devoid of laughs, it’s just that Dan Fogelman’s script is more sentimental than funny (the story is based on a real-life road trip he had taken with his mother). Most of the humor stems from Andy’s sarcastic asides to Joyce’s babbling. Where this trip veers off course is when Fogelman shoves in goofy contrivances, like when Joyce and Andy are stranded in the parking lot of a Tennessee titty bar and Joyce excitedly runs for the club’s front door because she misreads “topless” as “tapas.” Then there’s the scene in which Joyce participates in a Texas steakhouse’s eating challenge, which seems to be banking on audiences finding the sight of Barbra woofing down over three pounds of beef side-splitting. Hmmm, maybe it would’ve been better if Joyce lost a karaoke contest instead? There are also some lines that just haven’t aged well since the movie’s release, as when Joyce calls Andy her “little Donald Trump.” Oy!

All in all, The Guilt Trip is the kind of movie that can be described as cute. I remember thinking it was merely OK when I first saw it, ranking it as better than All Night Long but not as funny as For Pete’s Sake, or even Meet the Fockers. I had a higher opinion of the movie after a recent rewatch. The overall sweetness of the story resonated more the second time around, possibly because I’d lost my mother a few years ago and was more receptive to the sentimentality. I also laughed more than I remember doing on my first viewing. I still consider it one of Barbra’s lesser films, but it’s a little better than I initially gave it credit for.

Fashion forward: a track-suited Joyce adjusts Andy’s rumpled jacket.

Did it deserve to bomb underperform?: No, but it’s not surprising that it did. This thing was never going to make Marvel money (though, as I write this, Madame Web is making Guilt Trip money), however Paramount could’ve picked a better release date (Mother’s Day weekend, anyone?) The days when people flocked to see a Barbra Streisand movie had long since passed (even I, who saw All Night Long on its opening weekend, waited until The Guilt Trip was streaming), and younger audiences likely only knew Barbra as Roz Focker or a South Park punchline. Rogen’s fans at the time probably just wondered what the fuck he was doing in a PG-13 movie. But ultimately, the movie simply wasn’t funny enough to make people pay $8 U.S. to see it, especially in 2012’s economy.

Barbra has said she likely won’t make another movie, which isn’t surprising. She’s in her eighties, after all, though I wouldn't be surprised if she took one final, low effort/big payday film role before she dies (Book Club IV: The Wizening). So, for a career spanning more than six decades, the fact that she’s only had three box office misfires is a remarkable record. However, she’s also not been the most prolific actor, having made only 19 films, eight of those between 1981 and 2012. She hasn’t taken a lot of chances, either, sticking to musicals, comedies (romantic or otherwise) and romantic dramas. That may be great for a studio’s bottom line and Barbra's asking price, but I feel like she would have had a more interesting career if she had accepted some of the roles she turned down. In many cases, I’m glad she said no (King Kong, Poltergeist, The Exorcist 😮), but there are other film roles I wish she had taken. Would The Eyes of Laura Mars, Bagdad Cafe, or Misery (holy shit, really?) possibly have ended up on this list if she had accepted the offers to star in them? Highly likely, but, goddamn, how fun would those movies have been if they had been Barbra Streisand movies? No disrespect to Kathy Bates—she totally owned the part of Annie Wilkes and deserved her Oscar® for it—but I would very much want to see an alternate version of Misery with Barbra in that role. I can hear the trailer narration now: “The stars of Funny Lady reunite in a film that will surprise you...”

Throw it Back on the ‘Gaystack’

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