The Queer Pathos of Jennifer Coolidge
"The White Lotus" cements the actress's place as one of the best queer icons of her generation.
I first became aware of Jennifer Coolidge from her role in American Pie, where she played the mother of main character Stifler (mostly referred to simply as “Stifler’s mom”). In some ways, this was the role that would identify her as a “MILF” in the popular imagination, and I daresay that for many millennials (read: people my age) that remains the role that they most associate with her (though some might also remember her as the repressed housewife in Christopher Guest’s Best in Show).
I’ve seen her quite a lot since, obviously, most notably in Legally Blond (and its sequel), and she was the one redeeming thing about the otherwise sophomoric and incredibly irritating Two Broke Girls. Therefore, when I saw that she was going to be in a new HBO series, The White Lotus, I thought to myself: “Why not? Even if it’s terrible, at least it has Coolidge in it, and she’s always worth a watch.”
To be sure, there is a lot to admire (and a lot to hate) about The White Lotus, but there’s no question that Jennifer Coolidge is a highlight. From the moment she steps onto the screen, she is delightfully maudlin as Tanya McQuoid, a grieving woman who has come to Hawaii to spread her mother’s ashes. From the first episode to the last, she absolutely owns this role, inserting herself uncomfortably into other people’s social spaces, striking up a friendship with the spa manager Belinda (though she largely abandons their friendship when she strikes up a quasi-romantic relationship with a man named Greg), and just generally projecting her emotional neediness onto anyone within earshot. And, I would argue, she exudes a particular appeal te queer viewers, who see in her strange mix of self-pity and self-knowledge a reflection of their own discomfort at being in the world.
Part of this is her look. Coolidge has something of the voluptuous and nubile beauty associated with figures like Mae West, Raquel Welch, and Sophia Loren. In Coolidge, however, there’s an added layer, one that suggests that this is a woman whose looks have faded but who refuses to concede to the social dictum to retreat out of the public eye. She looks, to put it bluntly, rather like someone who has had a lot of work done but owns every bit of it, from her pouty lips to her eyes, which seem to always be squinting into the distance, not to mention that breathy, mincing voice. It’s to Coolidge’s immense credit that she also has about her a fragile dignity, as befitting a grand dame of Hollywood who is one of those stars that everyone recognizes but may not remember from where.
It’s more than just he appearance, however, for what makes Tanya such a delightfully queer character (and one that only Coolidge could play with this level of finesse) is that she’s always intruding into straight spaces. Take, for example, the unfortunate incident of the third episode “Mysterious Monkeys,” in which Tanya charters a boat in order to scatter her mother’s ashes in the ocean. Unbeknownst to her, Armond (the hotel manager) has scheduled straight newlyweds Shane and Rachel to share the boat with her in order to continue getting under the selfish Shane’s skin. What follows is a divine comedy of errors, for poor Tayna continues to believe that the increasingly-awkward (and infuriated) Shane and Rachel are there to offer support, while they don’t really know what to do with this strange circumstance.
What makes this an especially queer moment is the fact that Tanya just can’t quite seem to wrap her head around the fact that this entire scenario isn’t quite what she thinks it is. She repeatedly tries to get the straight couple to join her and Belinda (who has accompanied her on the excursion. Let’s be real, the Belinda/Tanya ship is the one that we should all be invested in). In one of the series’ iconic (and infinitely memeable) moments she raises her glasses to them, her face creased in that faint little enigmatic smile that is Coolidge’s speciality. It’s clear that Tanya isn’t deliberately trying to sabotage this romantic moment (or is she?), but that does end up being the result of her actions. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that Tanya becomes a queerly disruptive force, drawing our attention to just how artificial (and unpleasant and brittle) straightness often is.
And then, of course, there’s her expression of her grief over her mother’s death, which manages to be raw, ridiculous, histrionic, melodramatic, and subtle all at the same time. It is, as a friend of mine said, one of the most authentic portraits of contemporary grief that we’ve seen on screen. Tanya, like so many other people who have endured difficult relations with their parents, can’t quite figure out how she feels about her mother nor, just as importantly, how she should grieve her passing. As a result, she simply flounders through her feelings, making an unself-conscious spectacle of herself in the process.
Having spent so much of her time at the resort trying--and largely failing--to connect with the guests, Tanya does manage to strike up a remarkably intense, and physical, relationship with a man named Greg. It’s not long, however, before her codependent habits begin to take hold, leading up to her essentially stalking him as he swims in the pool. We have, of course, already seen Tanya engage in this sort of behavior, but even so we can’t help but cringe, both because it’s so awkward to see someone render themselves so visibly needy but also because many of us, especially queer people, understand how it feels to be so swept up in our feelings and our yearning for affection that we can’t quite control ourselves.
Fortunately for her, Greg takes this all in stride but, once again,Tanya manages to get in her own way, and things come to a fever pitch when she finally admits to him the truth of how she sees and understands herself: “I’m a very needy person,” she says, “and deeply, deeply insecure.” This confession is no surprise to us sitting in the audience, but Greg’s incredulity at this unwinding is both hilarious and tragic to watch. Though he doesn’t seem to know quite what to make of this unspooling confession of raw, searing emotional need, he nevertheless tells her that he still wants to have sex with her which, for Tanya, is enough.
For me, there was something piercing about this moment. As the saying goes, I felt seen. It was one of those instances where a star’s performance evoked a profound affective echo in my own person. I, too, am a very needy person and deeply, deeply insecure, and to see that set of complicated feelings given expression by Jennifer Coolidge herself was a moment of recognition, of echoing, of identification, made all the more so by the fact that she just...owns it. If only all of us could be so comfortable in our skins as to be able to admit to a fling that we are a big emotional mess.
Nor was I the only one to respond this way, at least not judging by Gay Twitter. By this point, of course, many queer Twitter users had already elevated Coolidge’s character to the status of a camp gay icon (that’s no surprise, given Coolidge’s existing popularity with the gays, a phenomenon of which she is aware). Her confession that she is a needy person who is deeply insecure resonates with gay men, young and old, because that feeling is still so rife within our community.
There are many reasons for this. Some of us, for example, have internalized the body image issues that are rife, both among gay men and among our culture at large. Others of us struggle to come to term with rejection, both familial and romantic. And many of us are reeling from the pandemic, which has made it even more difficult for queer people to find meaningful and intimate connections. Taken in conjunction with gay men’s enduring fascination and identification with certain larger-than-life female stars, it makes perfect sense that they would find themselves drawn to Coolidge’s Tanya, with her pouty lips, her outrageously stylish outfits, and her desires.
What makes Coolidge especially delightful as a queer icon is that she never lets Tanya descend totally into the abject. She’s not an object of pity, or at least not entirely that. In fact, there’s something queerly liberating about the fact that she is just so damn needy all the time and reaches out to anyone within range to try to fill the gaping maw in her soul. As Daniel D’Addario notes in Variety, “Tanya’s depth of feeling for herself is matched by a painful incuriosity about others,” though thankfully Coolidge grants it “depth and dimension.” What gay man hasn’t done the same thing, pushing aside everyone else’s problems in order to focus on his own, regardless of the consequences?
At this point, it seems very likely that her performance as Tanya will earn Coolidge an Emmy nomination, and I can even imagine her winning it. It will be an award that she has long deserved, and a testament to how profoundly moving her performance is in The White Lotus. One thing’s for sure: the queers will be cheering for her.