If I'm really going to boil it down, I think I love it because it's enjoyable but equally fascinating. So much sociology and critical review work has been written about the intimacy of this medium: it's in our homes, at our command, and now with Genius playlist capabilities it gets to know us and our tastes. TV for me and for many is where we flock to escape reality...but not too far. And while I enjoy that experience, what's much more interesting to me is that the shows on TV tell us so much about who is living in this country right now...or who producers believe that group to be. And the dialogue between those who offer shows and put them on television and the critical and mass response to them makes my heart skip a beat--I don't have to know everyone in America to know that American Idol gets the response it does because a majority of Americans deeply believe in the idea of the "American Dream." Living in a metropolitan center like Chicago, I have to remember that there are people who relate to and enjoy Duck Dynasty and Toddlers and Tiaras... and that they (are allowed to) vote in presidential elections. The fact that so many delight in the trainwreck television of the Real Housewives franchise on Bravo tells me many face hard times: who else watches that stuff except people who need to feel better about what they're doing right now? I'm much less concerned with what gets absorbed via TV than what our watching preferences and the studio offerings tell us about the conditions in which we live, whether privileged or not.
So, the appearance of Showtime's Happy-ish struck a chord with me...because it's so damn bleak.
Just in case you missed it but so as not "spoil" anything, here's a trailer:
Doesn't it just look great?
I've been hearing about this show and seeing Kathryn Hahn (who I can claim to know kinda) on the morning shows promoting and solely out of my love of my 2nd-degree connection to KH, when the pilot showed up on my streaming app I was like, "Oh YEAH...another good show in the mix." It was already a rainy, somewhat cold Saturday in what should be Spring here in Chicago and I was looking forward to savoring something good. I nestled into my "serious TV watching" position on my couch and there got lied to for 30 minutes. This isn't a show about modesty happiness, as the title suggests. It's some
Thankfully, mercifully, my streaming connection was sluggish so that about every ten minutes the show would pause; this became a welcome reprieve from the story of a man, Thom Payne of course he's named, who is depressed to the point of potentially needing some medication and for reasons I cannot understand. Of course, it could be his much younger, beautiful, artist wife who maybe was a child bride, if timelines are to believed who is also a kind and understanding mother to their very cute son. Perhaps it's his marketing job, complete with his own office, located in a building that looks like it could be owned and operated by Google. Maybe it's the kick-ass house they live in. Or everything other trapping of privilege this ex-pat Brit has amassed over the years.
Alright...I'm being reductive. Of course, this life has it's problems. Just in the first episode we learn that Thom doesn't want to try Viagra but his wife wants him to (maybe that was a joke I missed in the haze of sadness) but she worries that her pussy is too loose and considers a rejuvenation. Because of his new Millennial boss who wants this old "Mad Man" to get on board with social media, Thom has to cancel his 5 Guys plans with his son, who he worries is another kind of pussy, to which his wife responds, "All dads cancel on their sons. He'll be fine" (again...not sure if that was supposed to be ironic but if it was: fail). At the Town Hall style company meeting Thom ends up pitching a fit in front of his boss (Bradley Whitford, of course, in another "walk with me" role) that involves Keebler elves and discuss of his asshole leading to a bizarre and disturbing fever dream involving Mrs. Keebler elf. See...his life is hard and bizarre.
Aside from the washed out visuals that I'm sure were intended more so for figurative punch, I found myself wondering about what the appearance of a show like this means for us. Why does Showtime think this will sell? And, quite frankly, to whom? What does this say about what these executives think about their viewers? Thus begins my rant about overly existential TV.
I remember back in the good old Golden Days of the 80's there was a show called 30 Something.
My mom and her friends referred to it as "Yuppie Whiners" because at that point in their lives, as forty something, this show was so unabashedly navel-gazing and, frankly, stupid that they couldn't handle it. For a reason I cannot access, I loved it. I don't even have to tell you what it was about. Just look at the picture and glean from it. Then, not too long ago, TNT gave us Men of a Certain Age which mom subsequently called "Middle-aged whiney men."
Now add to that Showtime's Happy-ish. This is a genre of television I don't understand. Who wants to watch shows about how hard and terribly boring lives of privilege are? (No, I'm asking that question seriously...who?) Do we watch because it makes us feel better of if we're not in those categories? Like, "Hahaha...that ad exec thought his life would be so great but nothing is all that special?" Do folks watch because they actually relate to this?
I ask those questions carefully because I don't really care about the answers. Instead what I find myself wanting to saw to these show runners is something along the lines of, "Who do you think you are?" First, because you're obviously so rich you've lost touch with reality to the point you think your own mid-life crisis will make for compelling tv. But also, you think you have something important and real to safe about life in these United States and it's so misguided. There is A LOT to say about this life and you're wasting an incredibly powerful platform on the "earth shattering" issues of whether or not to give Viagra a try or what to do when your complacent, lazy self gets edged out of a job by people performing better than you are. These are rich people problems. No one wants to hear it. More to the point: it's only pertinent to very few lives in these United States.
Fundamentally, this is the beef I have with any television shows that try to make some important statement about social life from a vantage point of privilege which usually involves some combination of 1) whiteness 2) middle-classness 3) and hetero-normative relationships. And to approach that as a drama, almost sneering about how terrible that lot is makes my blood boil. A lot of television has gone through the ringer of social consciousness in the past. Social critics have taken Norman Lear's shows (Archie Bunker, Good Times, Maude to name a few) to task for reinforcing damaging stereotypes. Back before Bill Cosby was a sex predator, The Cosby Show and its offspring (A Different World) were skewered for not representing the "real" black experience just as Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life were.
While these critiques are well-taken, the fact is that these shows brought race, class, and the concept of inequality to the forefront of discussion in American homes that otherwise would have been (and typically were) oblivious. And they used satire and comedy, as comedians do still, to approach topics that are inherently uncomfortable and difficult. What differed in these and what was most valuable about them as catalysts for conversation was the character dealing with change in some way drew empathy. Even Archie Bunker, the prototypical racist asshole, was able to not be outrightly hated or resented in the long-game (the short-game was the exact opposite, in fact.) His arc was one of coming from ignorance into tolerance, as long a road as that was and it started in a house, on a chair that looked just like those in homes everywhere.
The real bummer for me about Happy-ish and the others mentioned above is that I think they do touch on life experiences that are real and that call into question the gilded idea of the "American Dream" which is one of the most heinous capitalistic ideologies at work in our world today. There is plenty to say about that whole construct not working out and, frankly, the more discussion we have about that not being real, the better all of our lives would be. But if the writers and runners of these "existential shows" really wanted to bring the "experience" of mid-life to television in a way that created some kind of dialogue they have to tell a different story. At the end of my workday, in which I'm being payed less than my male counterparts and fighting gender stereotypes in the tech workplace, the last thing I have one moment of sympathy for is the white guy with the life I aspire to whining about how terrible it is that he has all of this and still isn't happy.
Fuck you, dude.
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