YouTube web series review
I didn’t know I needed to watch Finesse. I only knew that I wanted to.
I can’t remember now how I heard about this series. Perhaps it‘s because my mind is still swimming. But I must write this now, because Finesse instills its viewer with a sense of simultaneous urgency and peace. I want to do everything and nothing. I want to embrace my brown body and my queerness with art and with rest. All I know is that I must capture how this piece of work has made me feel, if I can.
“Botox can’t fill your heart, babe”
”But my heart would be snatched thoooough”
The first thing I noticed about Finesse was color — light. The second was sound. From the beginning, it was like a bath for all my senses. The art in the title sequence is reminiscent of Broad City, but is also, in one word, MORE — like Finesse in microcosm, it is more humorous, sensual, and ethereal. Right when you are used to high fidelity imagery, the series hurls you into a low-fi world and brings you right back again. Right before a casual conversation is a poignant Audre Lorde quote (a redundant statement, I know); and if you get tired of seeing just one scene, it’ll throw you into two or even three simultaneous visuals side by side. There’s color and B&W; ensemble and soliloquy; and a hundred other tiny juxtapositions. There are visually striking Ayahuasca-fueled hallucinations, puppy play, and fascinating power dynamics. If you like the aesthetic of Euphoria, you will love the use of light, color, and cinematography in this series. In the case that all of this isn’t enough, may I present to you: the fashion of Finesse.
“I don’t know, but this has white supremacy written all over it”
Finesse explores friendship, sexuality, queerness, intimacy, found family, sex work, and various forms of vulnerability and relationships. On the surface, it’s simply three Black queer people living their lives, and one might even say, getting by — but is life ever really simple, especially for the intersectionally marginalized? As bell hooks says, imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchy has taken hold of our bodies. This is most evident in our obsession with policing Black queer bodies. Finesse, at its core, is about three people taking back control of their bodies, minds, and souls — whether that be through drag, dominatrix work, sex, friendship, love, clothes, humor, Botox, or important questions like, “is there some rule that says all queer people need to use baby wipes?”
“We’re not even accepted by people in our own community”
I am itching for a second season, but I have no idea if it is part of Vincent Martell’s plan. But whatever the makers of Finesse come up with next, I’ll be in the front seat. In the meantime, I will remember: “We will fear no fuckboy, no fuckgirl, or fuckthem.” Words to live by.
