The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo
The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo
The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo is a web series created by Brian Jordan Alvarez.
[1]It follows a group of young friends desperate for love and thrills.
"The reason “Caleb Gallo” can tread such well-traveled ground is that Alvarez creates a world a few marbles short of reality.
The characters speak at a breakneck pace, drawing the viewer in by forcing them to sit up and pay attention or risk missing the next offhanded quip or absurdly long laughing spell.
With eyes slightly crazed and voices raised a hair above natural, the stakes feel absurdly high for each character from moment to moment, yet they recover from setbacks with a resilience only an actor could muster.
The rules of this world are entirely fluid, with a logic of their own: Dates are walks, siblings are different races, gender is whatever, and sexual preference is something to be tried on like a fabulous hat.
Alvarez achieves what all storytellers should attempt at least once — to bring fantasy to life."
Plot
“Caleb Gallo” is basically a series about the love lives of five actor friends living in Los Angeles.
[12]There's a tone-setting moment at the start of Life of Caleb Gallo that carries through its four episodes.
The title character, played by the show's creator Brian Jordan Alvarez, is on the phone with his best friend Karen played by Stephanie Koenig, explaining how he's in love with both a Straight guy and a Gay 21-year-old, the latter of whom he only knew for two weeks before striking up a long-distance relationship.
About to head to her house to play an intentionally stereotypical gay best friend to get her one-night stand to leave, he hangs up and exclaims, "Oh my god, my car is such a fucking joke."
Soon, he's cruising with his head out the window, the Four Tops' "Loco in Acapulco" blaring as he makes waves through the air with his hand.
[13]What makes Caleb Gallo so compelling, is its ability to go from shallow to deep at a moment's notice, occupying a surrealist vision of Los Angeles where mistakes don't necessarily have consequences and betrayals are somewhat instantly forgiven.
In its first four episodes, Caleb commits to an exclusive relationship with Benicio, his Canadian pseudo-boyfriend (Antonio Marziale), only to hook up with Billy soon after.
(He pauses giving him a blowjob to FaceTime with Benicio about coming to visit.) Karen also hooks up with Billy and, after learning that he and Caleb had a fling, they all come to terms with it during an '80s-inspired montage set to Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes."
To make sense of the show's absurdity is to undermine it, and though it may stretch beyond the limits of reality, it's actually deeply rooted in it.
Alvarez explains how they got to Caleb Gallo: [13]
"Primarily, it's about relationships and different love lives.
A lot of moments when I've been single, that's what my life revolves around, talking around who I'm dating and if we're getting into a real relationship and if we're going to be monogamous.
I never want to be monogamous and I'm always falling into this super lovey-dovey kind of love with guys, and then they think that it's implied monogamy when in fact, the texture of my love is monogamous, but my mental and sexual desires are polyamorous.
So I can get into trouble, and I wanted to make that one of the things in the show.
That's how we got to Caleb Gallo."
The parallels between the 28-year-old Alvarez and his character are explicitly teased out on screen.
In the fourth episode, Caleb and Benicio take a trip to a hot springs getaway where a stranger propositions them for a threesome.
Caleb is down, but Benicio isn't, and the episode ends up reuniting the two on new and more open terms.
Alvarez says: [13]
"I try to do it only based on real life.
I don't really think about how I'm supposed to be representing gay people, but I know that I am one and I know a lot of them, so I do it based on my real life experience."
Minute details, like Benicio greeting Caleb in one episode in a pink lace dress, go unexplained and unquestioned.
They present a spectrum of gender and sexuality that is rarely represented in such a nonchalant way.
Alvarez says: [13]
"I try to make Caleb a big mess and something I like right now is that Caleb fucks up and is fucked up in real ways that aren't really fully redeemable.
I just think that sometimes he acts out of self-interest, and it's bad for other people.
Then he doesn't save the day.
We're all shitty people on some level."