I was browsing the Warner Archive channel on my Roku box and watched a Redd Foxx film from 1976 called “Norman, Is That You?” Foxx plays a distraught cuckold who goes to visit his son, unaware that his son is gay and is living with another man. Foxx’s character eventually figures it out and as you can guess … considering the character is played by Foxx … is initially not supportive. Though, eventually, in his dumb, clumsy, old-school way, he comes to understand his son and accept him.

It’s not a particularly great film, horrendously politically incorrect (his son’s boyfriend is the absolute worst screaming queen stereotype) but the movie is actually quite funny a lot of the time, mainly due to Foxx, who is an absolute comic genius. Despite the film’s political incorrectness, it’s also remarkably progressive, especially given the fact that it was made in 1976. You can check it out the link above or watch it on the Warner Archive app on Roku.

Best scene: Foxx goes to a bookstore to find books about homosexuality. Some wiseass puts a copy of Woodward and Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men” in the section about homosexuality, which prompts Foxx’s anguished conclusion: “All the President’s Men? I should have known!”