Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Know Your LGBT History

Friday, June 25, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Noah's Arc

In celebration of SC Black Pride, I want to focus on a television which really didn't get it's due - Noah's Arc:

From Wikipedia:

Set in Los Angeles, the show features the lives of four black gay friends dealing with everyday trials, tribulations, triumphs and tragedies. Noah's Arc premiered on October 19, 2005, on the Logo television network. The series was Logo's most popular program. Season 1 was filmed in Los Angeles, and Season 2 was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The show rose from humble beginnings. The pilot was produced independently; and, to assist in funding each episode, the show was originally envisioned as a DVD subscription series. During the pilot filming, Rodney Chester's (who portrays Alex) own truck was used for the actors to have their make-up, hair, and wardrobe fittings. Logo pursued the series after the pilot was well received at film festivals, independent circuits, and special screenings. Some scenes from the original pilot were either re-shot or removed for airing on Logo. The original pilot is included in the Season 1 DVD release. The opening credits theme song is "Remember The Love" (Samba Mix) by Adriana Evans.

In the summer of 2008, BET J, the spin-off cable television channel of BET, showed all episodes of Noah's Arc. The creator of the show Patrik-Ian Polk announced the broadcast schedule via MySpace. He hopes that the episodes air again in primetime on the BET network.

Shortly after the Season 2 finale cliffhanger aired, LOGO announced the show's cancellation. Surprised by the negative reaction of the show's fans, the network stated that the program may return if the film was a success. At the time of LOGO's announcement, however, none of the cast had yet been contracted for the film. "Noah's Arc" was said to be the network's highest-rated original series. The film had an opening weekend per screen average of $30,336 and narrowly came second for top per screen average by the Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie film Changeling, which opened in limited release the same weekend and averaged $32,601. Theaters playing the film opening weekend reported, by mid-December, it had taken just over $532,000 at the US box office, even though the film received little or no mainstream marketing support and never played on more than seven screens at once during its seven-week theatrical run. Despite the success of the film, LOGO failed to bring the program back to air and was criticized by African-American and LGBT communities as it represented a needed diversity in mainstream media.

5 comments:

kathygnome said...: Fantastic show, but not upper class white gay male enough for Logo.; 5:02 PM
Jon said...: I absolutely loved "Noah's Arc". QAF had the benefit of being first. Plus it doesn't hurt that it was on Showtime, which is available to more cable subscribers than Logo. I still haven't seen the "Noah's Arc" movie. One day...; 5:23 PM
WMDKitty said...: Is this available on Netflix?; 1:11 AM
BlackTsunami said...: I'm not sure Kitty.

It may be ;p; 4:18 AM
Louis said...: All of the DVDs for Season 1, Season 2 and the movie are available on NetFlix!; 3:29 PM