'The Deuce': Did you notice Nan Goldin's cameo in this week's episode?
In a meta moment, photographer Nan Goldin critiques her own work and disses it a little! 'The Deuce' creator David Simon has once again, shaken things up!
Blink and you'll miss it but if you do see it, you will never forget. This week's episode of HBO's 'The Deuce' featured a short and sweet cameo by renowned photographer and activist Nancy 'Nan' Goldin hanging out at our favorite bar the Hi-Hat. Looks like the news of Paul and Vinny's services are definitely reaching high places!
A choice that was a class apart by series co-creator David Simon, shows that the series really a different ball game altogether. Instead of picking a typical face in showbiz, Simon went with Nan which reflects just how much research has gone into the show. He even told fans that he studied her work from the 1970s- the time frame 'The Deuce' is set in currently. He tweeted, "What do you have to do to get the great Nan Goldin to do a big fat meta-cameo on your television drama? You have to study her photographs of 1970s Times Square and inject the raw DNA into your film sets, your wardrobe department, your hair and makeup trailer, your story & themes."
Some inside baseball on #thedeuce: The Nan Goldin photographs featured in tonight's episode include a self-portrait of Nan with Buzz, a pimp, at the actual 366 after-hours club & John Waters actress Cookie Mueller in the actual Hi Hat (name fictionalized) where Goldin tended bar. pic.twitter.com/S7mBZgNX3M
— David Simon (@AoDespair) October 1, 2018
Nan appears as a woman at the watering hole critiquing a photo. Incidentally, in the shot is "Buzz and Nan at the Afterhours, New York City" which is a part of the photo series 'Ballad of Sexual Dependency', one of her most popular work from the 1970's. The series paints a very real picture of the heroin subculture in New York during the time. The series is still credited with inspiring generations of photographers who tackle a similar vein. She tells Vinny (James Franco's character) that the photograph wasn't all that great. "They call that art? I coulda done that," she says. In the photo, Nan is seen with another subject named Buzz who the show's character Vinny appears to know. David even revealed that Nan was actually a bartender at the original bar that Hi-Hat is based on. Such a deep, meta moment, David!
Nan, however, isn't the photographer having the exhibit in episode 4, 'What Big Ideas,' it is a character named Viv played by Adelind Horan. In another meta moment, Abby Parker (Margarita Levieva) tells Vinny that Viv actually had an eye for the "marginalized". In real life, Nan's activism on issues regarding the LGBTQIA community, moments of intimacy, the HIV crisis, and the opioid epidemic have been revered. Viv however, snaps back at the comment from Abby. She says, "Hey, all you gotta do is listen."
'The Deuce' airs on Sundays on HBO at 9 pm.
