The A Team is all about cheese, but when a bar full of homophobic rednecks starts rocking out to Boy George, the show reaches a level of surreal ridiculousness attained by very few programs.
It's a perfect illustration of the strange and delicate balance that characterized the 80's between rigid adherence to gender roles and ultra macho men on one side, and the androgynous queer-chic MTV culture on the other.
I probably watched every A-Team episode two or three times as a kid, but this is the one that always sticks in my mind because it totally obliterated the fragile suspension of disbelief I had painstakingly held on to.
And yet, when Mr. T and Boy George, two males on the opposite sides of the masculine spectrum "bond" (figuratively) at the end, it's actually kind of a sweet moment. That Boy George is a sass machine when he kicks down that door. No one's gonna make him cry. You go George.
It's a perfect illustration of the strange and delicate balance that characterized the 80's between rigid adherence to gender roles and ultra macho men on one side, and the androgynous queer-chic MTV culture on the other.
I probably watched every A-Team episode two or three times as a kid, but this is the one that always sticks in my mind because it totally obliterated the fragile suspension of disbelief I had painstakingly held on to.
And yet, when Mr. T and Boy George, two males on the opposite sides of the masculine spectrum "bond" (figuratively) at the end, it's actually kind of a sweet moment. That Boy George is a sass machine when he kicks down that door. No one's gonna make him cry. You go George.