
There’s a great idea at the core of “Razor Tongue”, a new web series created by and starring Rain Valdez (“Transparent”) about the current state of call out culture. But while the act of constantly pointing out people’s problematic behavior is ripe for satire, whatever Valdez is attempting to call out here is vague and superficial at best.
As an Asian-American trans woman living in L.A., Belle (Valdez) certainly has a lot to say about the way men interact with her on a day-to-day basis. So over the course of seven bite-sized episodes, Belle is thrust into a variety of annoying situations, including a bad date and a job interview, where she feels compelled to let people know exactly how obnoxious their social skills are. But then she falls in love with the kind of frat-boy douche-bro that she usually rails against and her whole worldview comes into question.
This isn’t a bad set up, leaving the door open for an exploration into the grey areas of human interaction in a world that’s increasingly becoming more and more socially black and white. There’s just not enough time to really dig deep into any of these issues with the brief runtime of each episode and the entirety of the first season clocking it at under 40 minutes. This becomes most apparent in the forced and stilted development of the relationship between Belle and her new love interest, sapping the climactic confrontation, where Belle is called out herself on a radio show, of any sort of impact.
Valdez is a charismatic performer and after working behind the scenes in Hollywood for years, it’s great that she’s getting her shot at the spotlight. This project just needs more time and thought put into it to become the effective call-out statement that it should be.
- Release Date: 6/2/2019