"Is That Yours?" : What's it all about?

"Is That Yours?" is a hilarious web show about four women careening through life one politically incorrect situation at a time. It started as a submission to the Boston 48 Hour Film Project. After winning the Audience Choice Award and being selected for the Best-of DVD, an idea was hatched to turn it into a web series. It can be best described as high comedy, in the vein of Absolutely Fabulous, Fawlty Towers or Seinfeld.

Though ITY contains queer characters, we prefer to identify it as post-queer. There is too much division in both gay and straight communities when it comes to programming - gay shows are strictly gay and geared toward only the GLBT communities and straight shows merely pay lip service to gender/orientation acceptance, while still having the main characters be straight. Some shows have tried to create a more integrated environment but still feel the need to talk about homosexuality, as if a gay lifestyle needs to be justified. We feel that this is just adding to the notion that queer life is aberrant and we seek to change society by creating a show in which characters are who they are with no explanations. We don't talk about being queer or explain it -- we just have the characters be who they are while focusing on comedy. We hope that by refusing to have 'coming out' scenes or the like, we are sending a message to society that it's 2009 and the days of coming out are over. A character mentioning that s/he is queer/trans/unidentified is the equivalent of a character mentioning that his/her favorite color is blue; no further explanation is needed. In a sense, post-queer seeks to change society via life imitating art; if we can succeed in creating a world in television and film in which queer is normal (and thus, not queer anymore), then eventually, life will catch up.

ITY also seeks to change notion that women aren't funny. Tina Fey has made great breakthroughs, and who doesn't love Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French? But still, the idea in media is that women are not the real comedians. Strange when considering all the inane male comedies out there. Which brings us to the real strength of ITY - it's funny. Politics and social sciences aside, the bottom line is that this show is laugh-out-loud funny, due to a combination of great writing, acting and directing, along with a production team that enhances all comedy with graphics, sound effects and music. Gay or straight, you can't help but laugh, and maybe that is what will help erase the division more than anything else. Will and Grace may have made more strides for the queer cause than all the parades and rallies combined, and we hope to continue in that vein.