Brett White’s Top 10 Coping Mechanisms of 2020

So it took me a while! My co-workers have been evangelizing this show for years, turning out genius content that I did not read because I did not watch this show. But you know how hard it can be to start a show after years of hype. Like, I will fully never watch Succession because I don’t have the time to catch up. But Schitt’s Creek? My husband and I sped through the entire series in—I want to say a week or two, but I’ve lost all track of time and this show has now become our de facto comfort watch (my husband is literally watching the episode where Patrick gets another guy’s phone number at David’s request right now). I don’t know what else I could add to The Schitt’s Creek-versation, but I’ll say these two things: I love the depiction of a rural community that has a thriving local arts scene and small business, where all social interactions are not dictated by the church like they almost exclusively are in rural America. And two: I have too many feelings about Eugene Levy’s love and support for his gay son.

Stream Schitt's Creek on Netflix

Without fail, I lose myself in Hallmark—and Hallmark-esque—movies every single December. They combine so many things I love: ’90s sitcom stars, the holidays, and cheap movies with WTF moments aplenty. But this year? Cue the waterworks, because 2020 is the year that holiday romcoms started caring about the gays. The Christmas Setup on Lifetime, Dashing in December on Paramount, The Christmas House on Hallmark, Happiest Season on Hulu—God bless us, everyone! I cannot thank these movies enough for the work they’re doing to bring representation to the wide range of people that love these movies, particularly the parents residing in states that are less than friendly to the LGBTQ+ community. And I want to specifically thank writer/director Clea DuVall for giving me a Christmas movie that actually represents the kinds of Christmases I have lived through in Happiest Season. I can’t wait to get more of these movies next year.

Stream Happiest Season on Hulu

For the first six months of quarantine (so….. just March), I could not handle watching anything other than Netflix’s The Circle. Fortunately for my twisted desire to watch my own fishbowl existence reflected back at me via a reality game show, Netflix dropped three seasons of the show from three countries: America, Brazil, and France. This show remains The One when it comes to high concept, social experiment reality shows (no thank you, Love Is Blind and Too Hot to Handle, although I will watch every single season you release). The Circle ended up being way more hopeful and uplifting than I originally thought—and then the Brazil and France versions came along and were intense clashes of scheming titans.

Stream The Circle on Netflix

Since I have to live in 2020, why would I want to be entertained by 2020? Scripted Zoom sitcoms and reunions are very much Too Soon for me, so I jumped into the 1966 to 1967 TV season by watching episodes of Bewitched, That Girl, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, The Lucy Show, and Green Acres in airdate order. Yes, I created a massive Google Doc that organizes nearly 6,000 sitcom episodes across dozens of shows in airdate order. That Google Doc is my flux capacitor, and the streaming and VOD services are my DeLorean. To quote Huey Lewis, “Take me away, I don’t mind.”

Where to watch Batman

Stream Bewitched on Prime Video

Stream That Girl on Prime Video

Where to watch Green Acres

I don’t do video games. I haven’t earnestly done video games since I failed to even get close to beating X-Men 2: Clone Wars on the Sega Genesis. But seeing that I was in the constant doom-scroll spiral that we’ve all been in this year, my professional video game critic husband suggested I find a game to kill time with. That’s when an ad for the Marvel Strike Force mobile game popped up on my Instagram. Thanks, creepy ad algorithm! This game gives me a bunch of tasks to run and characters to upgrade and battles to fight. I am not making much progress, but I did recruit She-Hulk and Shatterstar after spending too much real money.

My username is Bob Hartley. Invite me to a team or alliance or something. Again, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Play Marvel Strike Force

What do you want from me here? Commentary on Queen’s Gambit or The Undoing or, lord, what other prestige dramas caught your attention this year? No, I do not care for the dramas of this world. I care only for The Mandalorian, the Star Wars show I’ve waited my entire life to watch but was convinced it could only ever exist in my childhood dreams. This show, especially Season 2, is my everything in every meaning of that word. It has the action I crave (That dragon battle! The speeder bike chase!) with the characters I love (Boba Fett is finally cool!). But more than that, The Mandalorian keeps giving us weird in the most Star Wars-y of ways: a giant praying mantis named Dr. Mandible, Grogu chowing down on unfertilized frog lady eggs, a squid man in a sweater, space macarons, and so much jetpack action. This is why streaming services exist, to give us this excessive sci-fi tomfoolery!

Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+

Along with watching old sitcoms to escape 2020, I also spent a lot of time learning about my gay heritage by researching and writing about the lives of gay men who inspire and fascinate me. This was the year of the queer history doc, too, from series like HBO Max’s Equal and Apple TV+’s Visible: Out on Television to films like Howard, A Secret Love and Disclosure. All those wonderful projects just highlighted for me how important it is that we tell our stories. If we don’t, who will? Schools won’t, not yet! That’s why I took every chance I could to write about my gay forefathers, men like Charles Nelson Reilly, Paul Lynde, Howard Ashman, Raymond Burr, and the men who made The Boys in the Band. And, nearest and dearest to my heart, classic Hollywood character actor Hayden Rorke, most known as Dr. Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie. I’ve spent a lot of my downtime in 2020 uncovering his fascinating life story, from living out and proud—and thriving!—in such intense environments as World War II and Hollywood at the height of McCarthyism. I’ve seen more of Hayden Rorke this year than all of my friends—and he’s gonna get a full article devoted to him once all five seasons of I Dream of Jeannie show up at once on streaming somewhere! These rotating seasons in and out ain’t cutting it, Prime Video and Crackle!

Stream I Dream of Jeannie on Prime Video

Stream Visible: Out on Television on Apple TV+

2020 was a very wrong year, but lordy was the drag right! All of it kept me sane, but the nonstop antics of Trixie Mattel and Katya—the two hardest-working blondes of the year—brought my husband and me so much joy. Whether it was the two of them losing their damn minds over Netflix’s Glow Up, trying to solve the conundrum that is heterosexuality on UNHhhh, or just watching their home recording setups evolve on the surprise lockdown series Trixie & Katya Save the World, every single minute of their output left me stupid giddy.

But that’s! Not! All! Trust and believe these two were flinging content even while flying solo in 2020. Katya’s music video for “Ding Dong!” is a Eurovison acid trip to hell, and honestly I’ve never seen my husband so gagged as he was when this beautiful mayhem swayed onto our screen. And Trixie Mattel’s YouTube finally made me care about YouTube content! Like clockwork, I dropped everything every single Monday to watch Trixie show off her doll collection or chance intestinal failure by eating elderly dough out of an old ass Easy-Bake Oven. I only put on makeup once a year when I become Gomez Addams for Halloween, but I have watched—and will continue to watch—every makeup tutorial she puts up.

I haven’t even touched upon Trixie and Katya’s book or podcast or Tracey Martel’s life-changing cover of “Lip Gloss” but, I gotta move on before Trixie and/or Katya release something else for me to get obsessed with!

Stream UNHhhh on WOW Presents Plus

Stream I Like to Watch with Trixie & Katya on YouTube

Trixie Mattel's YouTube channel

Stream Trixie & Katya Save the World on WOW Presents Plus

Y’all want to know how completely lost I became this year? How totally untethered from this nasty moment? My #2 coping mechanism of the year 2020 is Hart to Hart, a campy as hell show from the early ’80s that, it turns out, is actually everything I want from a show?? Truth be told, I have harbored an—I’ll just say thorough—crush on Robert Wagner for as long as I can remember. Seriously, I remember catching the Hart to Hart closing credits in basic cable reruns 30 years ago, before whatever sitcom or game show I was tuning into watch. I was transfixed by this dashing, debonair, devastatingly handsome man as a six-year-old—and if I wanted to treat my 36-year-old, quarantine-frazzled, stir-crazy, gay ass to an hour of Jonathan Hart eye candy every single afternoon after work, I deserved it. The world is absolute garbage, give me this.

And I gave myself over to Hart to Hart! I bought the complete series on DVD (and the TV movies)! I made Decider publish an ode to the show for gay history month! I started a Jonathan Hart style Instagram! I dressed up as Jonathan Hart for Halloween… and also on my birthday… and just any day. Quarantine me has become a man who wants to watch a sexy, childless, middle-aged couple relentlessly flirt with each other while solving nonstop murders… and he’s also a man who now owns bracelets and pinky rings and rocks an ’80s mane that is only partially present because going to a barber is tough right now. I guess this is me now! Thanks, Hart to Hart! My husband is very angry at you!

Stream Hart to Hart on Prime Video

World of Wonder and VH1 had no idea when they lined up back-to-back-to-back-to-back seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Canada’s Drag Race, and Drag Race Holland that they would actually be saving the social lives of millions of people all trapped at home, battling boredom, anxiety, and fear. But that’s what these shows did! They gave structure to our weeks, capping off another chunk of Groundhog Days from Hell with a legit reason to celebrate. Live-texting this show kept me in regular, weekly contact with my best friends half a country away, as we all dealt with COVID fallout. I know this is a silly/fun list (see: entry #2), but… like, Drag Race kept me going—or rather it kept me from grinding to a complete halt.

It helped that the year gave us some of the absolute best drag moments of all time! Season 12 was a true triumph, a weekly feel-good blast of joy. But the moment of moments? Watching Shea Coulee win All Stars 5—I mean, it’s likely that the happiest two moments of my year were watching Shea and Joe Biden snatch crowns? This was a helluva year for Drag Race, and I’m so grateful that this show was a real companion during this crisis. Now I’m ready to ring in the Ru year.

Where to watch RuPaul's Drag Race

Where to watch RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars

Stream Canada's Drag Race on WOW Presents Plus

Stream Drag Race Holland on WOW Presents Plus