6A - Monday, October 7, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
6A - Monday, October 7, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
The glass ceiling of
television's golden age
CBS
"So how about that 'Arrested' movie?"
Mediocre 'Millers'
Will Arnett can't
save derivative
family sitcom
By EMILY BODDEN
Daily Arts Writer
Laugh tracks are never a good
indicator. Empty and.studio-pro-
duced, they exude desperation.
In this case, the
robotic claps (-
heralded an
imminent and The Millers
looming death Pilot
for CBS's new
family-based Thursdays at
sitcom, "The 8:30 p.m.
Millers."
Undisput- CBS
edly hilarious
on "Arrested
Development," Will Arnett doesn't
meet his potential with his new-
est character. The writing has
moments that are mildly .amus-
ing, but that's the strongest praise
it deserves. After his portrayal of
Gob, his latest endeavor as Jack
seems desperate and hasty. Arnett
has already paid his dues in the
industry and should be landing,.
and choosing, well developed
characters. Having him on their
side may be a way for the show to
save itself but the writing needs to
cater to his comedic style - which
they clearly didn't in this season
opener.
When Jayma Mays walks
onscreen as Jack's sister, Deb-
bie, it's tough to see anything
beside "Glee" 's Emma. While
Mays has been in other shows,
including ".The League," it's
hard to see her as anyone
besides Emma, especially due to
her continued choice to portray
sickly sweet and mildly con-
fused characters. In this case,
her character wasn't developed
at all, and there was no chem-
istry between her and her TV
brother, Arnett.
None of the situations the
characters find themselves
in feel inspired. The funniest
scene finds Jack buckling to
his depressed mother's whim
to dance at an apartment party.
Newly divorced, which actually
helped lead to his parents' own
split, Jack hopes to find a woman.
to distract him. The punchline is
his mother's staying at his apart-
ment, drugged on sleeping pills.
If not for a renowned TV series
known as "Friends," this would
have been pretty funny. Instead,
Jack's choreographed dance
with his mother is strongly rem-
iniscent of the brother-sister
dance. Considering both shows
are sitcoms, the similarity is
eerie and a bold move for "The
Millers." Sometimes invoking
older shows can be rewarding,
but this time, it proved a com-
parison point that "The Mill-
ers" cannot hold their ground
against.
"The Millers" needs to forge
its own path to be a success-
ful sitcom. As seen by shows
like "How I Met Your Mother,"
"Friends" and "Arrested Devel-
opment," creating a strong
niche audience is crucial. Sit-
coms require cult-like follow-
ings of people who will vouch
for the show. And to create that
following capably demands a
fresh take on situations and
continued character growth.
Audiences have already met
dysfunctional families. It's time
for the writers of "The Millers"
to make us want to care about
what happens to theirs after
this pilot.
With only one episode out,
"The Millers" may yet see an
upswing. Judging by what was
seen on the premier, the only
way to go is up because if not,
cancelation looms in the future.
Soap has turned into a
dirty word. When it
comes to television, the
history of soap operas began
with daily serialized programs
like "Guiding
Light," "As
the World
Turns" and
"All My Chil- ,
dren." Day-
time soapsp
- oft-derid-
ed for their KAYLA
over-the-top UPADHYAYA
plotlines,
ridiculous
twists and schmaltzy romance
- belong to a fading breed of
television. But the soap opera
genre is far from dead. Instead,
it has evolved, strands of soapy
DNA seeping into primetime
programming on both cable
and network TV.
But because of the genre's
roots, when I call a show
"soapy," it's often taken to
mean "ridiculous," "indulgent"
and "sensational." These gen-
eralizations - while possessing
some truth - are often exag-
gerated, but what's more prob-
lematic is how people regard
primetime soaps as "women's
shows."
Soap is a gendered genre.
Again, there's historical
context to that assumption.
Daytime soaps were initially
marketed to women (who were
presumed to be at home during
airtime), examined the private
and public lives of women and
featured female-dominant
casts. But that's exactly why
the undervalued genre plays
such an important role in TV
history: It was one of the first
television movements that was
for and by women.
In 1930, Irna Phillips created
the radio program "Painted
Dreams," which critics regard
as the first soap ever. From
there, she went on to develop
"Guiding Light" and "As the
World Turns," and was, at the
time, one of the only women
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in television with the same
amount of creative power
and financial success as her
male contemporaries. On soap
operas, female characters
flourished and played essential
roles in the action. That's not to
say that these early manifesta-
tions of the genre weren't also
rife with problematic gender
politics - but in the early days
of television, soap operas were
the only programming where
you could find female charac-
ters who weren't just defined in
terms of the men around them.
Just as films labeled as
romcoms become marginal-
ized under the sexist label
of "chick flicks," primetime
dramas labeled as "soaps"
become "women's shows." And,
unfortunately, once it's limited
to that label, the show loses its
credibility.
Just look at "Scandal."
The Shonda Rhimes-helmed
ABC series is one of - if not
the - most intelligent series
on network TV. With its emo-
tional intensity and complex,
always-twisting plot, "Scandal"
embraces its identity as a full-
out soap. Sure, its storylines are
often implausible and some-
times straight-up unbelievable,
but since when is plausibility
essential to great television?
While "Scandal" often isn't
taken seriously for its more
outlandish moments, other
shows like "Breaking Bad" are
given free pass after free pass.
We let "Breaking Bad" get away
with improbable feats, because
the things that truly matter
- emotions, characters - are
believable.
The same is true for "Scan-
dal," which may get wacky
with its plot points, but is bit-
ingly real when it comes to its
characters' emotions and the
complex issues that inform the
story: power, race, sex, moral-
ity. And yet, people pigeonhole
"Scandal" into the category
of "guilty pleasure" TV, while
more male-centric series that
stay clean of the gendered
"soap" label are held up as
beacons of today's golden age
of television. Other female-
centriceprograms - "The Good
Wife," "Revenge," "Nashville,"
"Damages" and "Orange Is
the New Black" - are heavily
influenced by soapy devices,
like complex storylines driven
by many characters and roman-
tic arcs. Like "Scandal," these
series are similarly margin-
alized and undervalued by
viewers due to the gendered
assutmptions about their genre.
"Orange Is the New Black" is
one of the most female-centric
television shows on TV right now,
and while it has received huge
critical acclaim, it's still trivial-
ized and referred to as alesser,
diluted version of its more male-
centric, prison-set predecessor .
"Oz." "More 'Gossip Girl' Than
'Oz', " boasted the New York
Times of "Orange," in what's
an offensive - not to mention
entirely inaccurate and mislead-
ing - analysis of the series. Other
critics similarly gloss over the
show's more violent and threat-
ening aspects, focusing instead
on the witty, "Weeds"-y humor
that flows throughoutthe dark-
ness. "Orange" features an almost
entirely female cast and crew, but
that in no way means it's a show
"for women." The character-
driven series captures human
emotions and experiences that
speak to a whole range of demo-
graphics, and if you think it offers
a fluffy take on prison life, you
aren't watching very closely.
The soap genre also informs
and influences a whole slew of
male-centric dramas like "Mad
Men," "Breaking Bad" and
"House of Cards." Yet, even at
their soapiest, these four series
are rarely described as such.
"House of Cards," in particular,
with its melodramatic, border-
line theatrical characters, is an
overtly soapy show, but critics
often refer to it with the more
male-centric term "noir." "Cards"
pushes the line of believability
with its far-fetched storylines
and, unlike "Scandal," the Netflix
series fails to construct convinc-
ing characters and lacks entirely 4
in emotion.
But it still got an Emmy
nomination, because male-cen-
tric melodrama is simply taken
more seriously than female-
centric melodrama. In fact,
in the past 15 years, the eight
series that have won Emmys for
Best Drama - "The Practice,"
"The West Wing," "The Sopra-
nos," "Lost," "24," "Mad Men,"
"Homeland," "Breaking Bad"
- have all been male-centric
shows. They were all created
and run by male showrun-
ners, and with the exception of
"Homeland," all feature men as
protagonists (despite Carrie's
prominent role in "Homeland,"
I still think it plays out as a
very male-centric series).
'Scandal' may
be soapy, but
that's far from a
bad thing.
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In his book "The Revolu-
tion Was Televised: The Cops,
Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who
Changed TV Drama Forever,"
longtime TV critic Alan Sepinwall
chronicles the 10 drama series
that epitomize this golden age
of television. "Buffy the Vam-
pire Slayer" is arguably the only
female-centric show that makes
his list. He, as most critics do,
gives credit almost entirelyto
"The Sopranos" and "Oz" forthe
rise of HBO, eventhough "Sex and
the City" played a huge role in the
cable network's beginnings. In
their analyses of the golden age,
critics like Sepinwallunknowing-
ly perpetuate the assumption that
a showhas to be "manly" inorder
to be consequential. The golden
age of television has come to be
associated with hyper-masculine
programming bursting with vio-
lence and voyeurism. "Soapy" has
turned into a coded way of saying
aTVshowis "for chicks," and as
aresult,brilliant, female-centric
shows (and shows createdby
female showrunners) are com-
partmentalized and regardedas
somehow lesser forms of their
golden-age brethren.
When a dead-behind-the-eyes
show like "House of Cards" can
manage to nudge out an emotional
andvisual knockoutlike "Scan-
dal," there's something wrong.
Part of why we don't see more
female-centric seriesbreak into
the Best Drama category at the
Emmys is a numbers game: There
simply aren't enough women-cen-
tric shows on television, and that
has to do with the gender barriers
that exist in the industry, making
it more difficult for female show-
runners to break in.
A series like "Orange is the
New Black" - with its cast of over
a dozen diverse female characters
and women-filled writers room -
feels revolutionary. There's truly
nothing else like itcon television.
Sepinwall's revolution was led
mostly by Dons, Walters,Vics
and Seths. The revolution I'm still
waiting to be televised will be one
where shows like "Scandal"
and "Orange" feel less like a
divergence from the status quo
and are treated as seriously as
anything else on television.
Upadhyaya is soap issed.
If you hated that pun, e-mail
kaylau@umich.edu.
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