R. Kelly's 'Trapped In The Closet' Might Be The Best Thing Ever, Forever
If you're like me, you've been waiting with bated breath ever since IFC announced the return of R. Kelly's hip-hopera saga Trapped in the Closet, which next month debuts dozens more chapters in the ongoing saga of Sylvester, Cathy, Bridget, Twan, Pimp Lucius, and the various relatives and secret lovers and midgets in their lives. Because 22 chapters weren't enough!
In a recent interview with Time promoting his new "Single Ladies" tour (never mind that Beyonce used the phrase quite memorably herself, this is a man who charted with a song called "Feelin' On Yo Booty" and whose lyrics can make even the adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt sound terribly, terribly naughty) and an album of "bedroom ballads," R. Kelly not only refers to himself in the third person multiple times, he teases that there's even more Trapped in the Closet to come after Trapped in the Closet: The Next Installment debuts Thanksgiving weekend.
"We just shot 20 chapters," he said. "They’ll be coming out the day after Thanksgiving. Trapped in the Closet is forever. I’ve got like a hundred chapters to come."
You hear that? Trapped in the Closet is forever. FOREVER!
Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, originally recorded in 2005 as a five-chapter single then expanded into a whopping 20+ chapter collection made cinematic in a series of amazing videos, remains Robert Sylvester Kelly's sole acting project to date though his music has a bona fide cinematic streak. Kelly previously contributed to a number of film soundtracks (Space Jam, Sparkle) and, of course, has integrated all manner of film cultural references into his jams.
The best-worst of them? A toss up between the Major Payne shout out on Fat Joe's "Make It Rain (Remix)" and his Jurassic Park mention on "The Zoo": "Girl I got you so wet/It's like a rainforest/Like Jurassic Park/Except I'm your Sexasaurus, baby."
So, you know. He's got movies on the brain. Either Trapped in the Closet does go on literally forever, or perhaps one of these days R. Kelly will make the next logical leap into feature films. (It's already had its own live sing-along.) I haven't done the math, but how long exactly would the run time be on a theatrical release of all 50+ chapters?
Anyways: Watch this teaser promo for the new chapters, appropriately titled "Oh Shit." We all have one more reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving.
[via Time]
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Comments
"MIDGET... Midget... midget..."
It's all great, but that line is my all time favorite. This guy is comedy gold. Funnier than Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and all those other idiots combined.
My question to other movieliners: I think R. Kelly started this out as something serious. Do you think he is doing it for the comedy now? Like he realized everyone thinks it's funny, so now he's like, "Oh yeah, yeah. It was meant to be a joke. Ya'll thought I was serious? Hell naw! I'm bringing more hilarious episodes."
I thought the whole point of this exercise was Kelly's crusade to ease Hip Hop, Rap, and R & B culture in to accepting that it's ok to be gay.
He's not exactly being subtle with the title :
"R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet."
He's saying he wants to come out as openly gay, but feels trapped by prejudiced attitudes towards homosexuality within the Hip Hop, Rap, and R & B fraternities - thus forcing him to hide behind the mask of a booty-lovin' misogynist, and living out the accepted generic clichés.
Unfortunately for Kelly, 20 episodes were not enough to relax attitudes to a level he felt comfortable with. And he continues in his noble quest, but with the sad resignation that negative attitudes may never change, leaving him trapped in the closet forever.
Perhaps one day, maybe a couple of hundred episodes down the line, when the series has explored the sexual possibilities from more radical points of view, and the audience has come to not only accept, but invest in the homosexual characters, Kelly will finally be able to break free, and come out of the closet :
"You see guys, it's ok to be gay. Gay's are regular people too.
I'm surprised nobody picked up on it sooner, I've been dropping less than subtle hints for a long time now.
Finally I'm free to be who I really am, and though I wish I'd had the courage to be open about it from the very beginning, I'm so proud of what we have achieved with the Trapped in the Closet project.
From now on, everyone is free to be openly gay, safe in the knowledge that they will be completely accepted and embraced by all communities, including I'm proud to say, those of Hip Hop, Rap, and R & B.
Oh yeah, by the way, that whole statutory rape / marriage thing with Aaliyah... That was just a smoke screen obviously.
I'm really not too proud of that, but you see I was being forced to live up to genre expectations, and divert suspicion.
If you guys had been more accepting of homosexuality in the first place, I would not have had to start messing around with underage girls - so you see you are as responsible for that as I am.
We're all to blame, but now we can all be proud.
Peace!
R. Kelly"
My favorite line, too! I can hear it echoing in my head now. So great.
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