Wheels (Still) On Fire! :: The 'Ab Fab' Movie

It's been over two decades since "Absolutely Fabulous" took gay audiences by storm, mocking and celebrating fashionistas while ripping giant scabs off a culture obsessed with wealth, health and political correctness.

For many gay men (and a few women), the question of identity wasn't whether they were Will or Jack, Carrie or Samantha. It was: "Which of us is Patsy or Edina?" (Obviously, Saffy was everyone's ex.)

With the guest star-packed "Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie," scheduled for American release July 22, it's a great time to re-examine the impact of this rude, brilliant and often sloppy-drunk mess of a sitcom on "the gays."

The film synopsis seems to take off from a typical series premise: a major opportunity spoiled by our antiheroines' substance abuse, laziness and poor preparation. (Think Patsy's deer-in-the-headlights appearance on morning television, blankly repeating, "Cheers, right. Thanks a lot.") Blamed for an incident at a fashionable launch party, Edina and Patsy become entangled in a media storm. Broke and pursued by the paparazzi, they flee to the Riviera, where they plot their comeback.

"Ab Fab": A Primer

For anyone (extremely) late to the party or too young to remember, let's catch you up. Premiering on the BBC in 1992 and Comedy Central in 1994, "Absolutely Fabulous" centers on the misadventures of best friends -- publicist/entrepreneur Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), fashion director for a Vogue-like magazine catering to the top one percent.

Other characters include Bubble (Jane Horrocks), Edina's crackle-voiced, mentally challenged assistant; Edina's sweetly caustic mother (90-year-old June Whitfield, Britain's answer to Betty White); and Edina's children, the seldom-seen Serge and homebody Saffy (Julia Sawalha), a Greek chorus of rage-filled disapproval, dressed in sweater vests of taupe and sage.

The show evolved out of a sketch on the British TV comedy French and Saunders called "Modern Mother and Daughter," which featured Saunders as "Adrianna," a middle-aged mother who acted like a teenager, and her teenage daughter "Saffron" (played by Dawn French), the "designated adult."

Perpetually struggling to drop two stone (28 lbs., by American reckoning) without diet or exercise, Monsoon remains the ultimate fashion victim into her 40s and beyond. Sporting an expensive, age-inappropriate and ill-fitting wardrobe, she's constantly pursuing the latest fad -- from isolation tanks and colonics to Buddhism.

Tall, blonde and eating-disorder thin, Patsy Stone is alcohol- and drug-dependent, thoroughly uneducated, and yet surprisingly chic and wise in the ways of the world. Slouching, sneering, and loose-limbed, she makes a slight dowager's hump sexy.

In her book "Continuity," Saunders points out that while the indelible image of Patsy is an aging sexpot in leather straddling the seat (and usually the driver) of a motorcycle, nine times out of 10 she's impeccably dressed in age-appropriate Chanel couture. A drag queen's ideal, she's even played by a male actor in a play based on her character.

As with many gay men, Patsy's indeterminate age remains a running joke, with her passport showing her birth year as "1919" and a social worker scanning a database back to "dinosaur times" while determining her eligibility for a pension. Her hedonism's a throwback to everyone's club days, as she casually mentions picking up a window washer with "buns so tight, he was bouncing off the walls."

Hit Me Harder - I Like It!
"Ab Fab" does more than depend on the camp appeal of its over-the-top leads for LGBTQ cred. Saffy's antique-dealer dad now lives with his younger (black) lover. Serge, who goes to great lengths to avoid his overbearing mother, is later revealed as gay and living in New York. And Edina repeatedly pleads with her daughter to consider lesbianism as a way to make her more interesting.

From its first episode, Saunders shows Edina's willingness to both embrace and thoroughly exploit the LGBT community, insisting that a fashion show feature images of "happy gay couples" and signage reading "Fashion Cares." It's a nice twist that, as a drab intellectual working in a bookstore (The Strand, actually), Serge turns out to be the wrong kind of gay for Edina's tastes.

"Ab Fab"'s beauty was always in star and writer Saunders' willingness to skewer her characters, the fashion industry and celebrity-obsessed culture, while also celebrating her aging heroines' refusal to sacrifice their identities and ceaseless determination to defy the remnants of the dreary Thatcherites and have a "bloody good time." (The Iron Lady finally left office a year before the show premiered.)

Refusing to pander, Saunders built an audience by simultaneously acknowledging and mocking gay culture. She was as deliciously hateful to conservatives, major and small-C celebrities, New Age charlatans, the elderly and the LGBTQ community, once having Edina observe that gays automatically embrace Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich or "any old bitch with a drug problem."

And the gays loved it.

An Eternal Bond?

It was a scene that could have been lifted from the series. In 2002, Saunders and Lumley received an award during New York's Pride, dressed in character and camping it up. Though sexless, a powerful same-sex relationship exists between Edina and Patsy, who stick by each other through husbands, lovers, career disappointments and disapproving children. Later in "Ab Fab"'s run, Whoopi Goldberg even married the pair, years before gay marriage was legal.

In a recent interview for V magazine, Saunders and Lumley shared their thoughts on "Ab Fab"'s popularity with the gay community, with Lumley stressing the seamless integration of LGBTQ characters into the storyline.
"You go back and pick through it, the amount of gay references and ease with which it's been put into the story, without it being dragged along like a great log of plot," she said. "It's really normal that one of [Edina's] ex-husbands now lives with his young boyfriend. It's completely normal that [Edina] wants Saffy to be a lesbian, or that Serge is gay and living in New York."

Jaw-Dropping Incidentals

Lumley also references a throwaway flashback from "Ab Fab"'s Marrakech interlude, with a mustached Patsy dressed in Sgt. Pepper gear, playing a sitar. "It's completely normal that Patsy is transgender." Later in this early episode, Edina explains, "It fell off a year late." Ruder still, in Season Four, Edina talks client Twiggy into appearing on the tame Richard and Judy morning show to promote her fundraiser, Fists Across America.

"We tried very hard," said Saunders, "but [gay people] refused to be offended -- and I admire them for that. Thank God you're hanging on in there."

A final bit of icing on the coke - er, cake: Gay icon Kylie Minogue covers Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's on Fire," the earwig of a theme song from the show's first seasons, on the film's soundtrack.

Patsy and Edina: In Their Own Words

Over more than two decades, "Ab Fab" quotes have become part of the gay vernacular. Lucky us, there's one inappropriate for almost any occasion.

Here are some familiar chestnuts interspersed with a few that are a bit more obscure -- and particularly derisive -- including several Patsy Stone bon mots on celebrity culture.

Pats on:

Alcohol - "The last mosquito that bit me had to book into the Betty Ford Clinic."

Sobriety - "The worst eight hours of my life."

Plastic Surgery - "One more facelift on this one and she'll have a beard."

Animal Rights - "Siamese cats? You used to wear those."

Karl Lagerfeld's Signature Ponytail - "Darling, he's got a comb-over from a nose hair."

Nutrition - "So, have you got any of those, um, food things?"

Saffy - "You may dress like a Christian, but the similarity ends there."

It's Me, Me, Me!

When not lamenting the hardcore partying of the 1960s and '70s, Eddy's best quotes involve weight and her determination to remain relevant in a youth-obsessed culture.

Edina Monsoon on:

Yoga - "Couple of weeks, I'll be bendy like Madonna, darling. Then I'll be able to kiss my own arse from both directions."

Saffy's Pregnancy - "I'm gonna have a mixed-race baby, darling! A mixed-race baby is the finest accessory a person in my position could ever have, sweetheart! Oh my God, it's the must-have of the season! It's the Chanel of babies!"

Edina: "In this body there is a thin person dying to get out."
Mother: "Just the one, dear?"

"Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie" opens nationwide July 24. Minogue's Dylan cover is available now.