"the deuce"

HBO

Amid the recent sexual harassment and assault allegations leveled at some of the most famous directors, producers, agents, actors and D-list power players in Hollywood, it's difficult not to rewatch every film, TV series or web show implicated and ask, "what did that poor actress have to endure or go silent over in order to land this life-changing role?" It's a shameful question to even posit — though, as evidenced by the routine degradation of women in our society, this malignancy has never really been in dispute. A festering backdoor secret, long held within the confines of the "the biz," is only now, somehow, receiving the kind of media attention it has so rightfully spurred. Whether in music, politics, the arts, business, sports or finance, women are often mistreated as transactional coinage — discarded only after a worthy trade's been made, or brought in to permanently satiate the needs of an insecure, megalomaniacal power broker. 

HBO's new 1970s series, "The Deuce" explores these same exploitative motifs, albeit within much larger divisions of labor seen in gritty NYC street capitalism; where racism, counterculture, homophobia and drug addiction rattle alongside a decadent, sexist scrim. Co-created by George Pelecanos & David Simon, who previously joined forces on "The Wire" and "Treme," the show depicts prostitution, quite viscerally, as the mentally and physically hazardous profession that it is — prodding viewers to decipher why these young, intelligent women would ever stick around under such heartbreaking and harrowing conditions. They are not only robbed of their dignity (and in one case, *spoiler alert* their life), but of their earning potential; left to fight over scraps when it is they who are risking their bodies, hearts and minds. Simon and Pelecanos do such a fine job weaving complex and layered storylines however that these beloved characters rarely get muddied down by their own personal tragedies — offering up a buffet-style smorgasbord of misery, contempt and spiritual dissatisfaction instead that only a city like New York could ever selflessly provide.

Cable cutters are likely still used to turning to HBO for unabashed looks at adult life; i.e. "Real Sex" and "Taxicab Confessions," but "The Deuce" gets away with some fairly explicit material and subject matter, made all the more compulsory by its elaborate use of mise en scène. As some critics have pointed out, the show's gratuitous nature can also be viewed as its greatest shortcoming — which begs the question, does the series' intended voyeurism warrant an addition level of scrutiny and disgust, or some form of vicarious pleasure? Perhaps there are no easy answers, but one facet remains clear — "The Deuce's" violent pathos, riddled between the "haves" and the "have-nots," is a clear distillation of modern day American capitalism, a reminder that our economy is built like a pyramid, where shit invariably trickles down only after those at the top have had their cut. Everyone is just trying to outmaneuver a system that favors greed and cruelty over mercy and benevolence — and it is never quite clear, even by the series finale, which side wins ultimately out, even if it makes for one hell of a binge-worthy pilgrimage back to the patriarchy. 

"THE DEUCE" on HBO. Rated TV-MA.