The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, April 10, 2015 — 5

Foster fights to save 
lackluster ‘Younger’

TV LAND

“Is that a money phone?”

By ALEX INTNER

Daily Arts Writer

Let me get this out of the way 

first: I am not the target audience 
for “Younger.” I am a 20-year-old 
male 
college 

student, not the 
type of person 
TV Land goes 
after 
with 
a 

show about a 
woman in her 
40s 
pretend-

ing to be, well, 
younger. How-
ever, 
there’s 

one 
element 

that 
peaked 

my interest in the series: its star, 
Sutton Foster. She has won two 
Tony Awards for her Broadway 
work (and has been nominated 
for several more), and she starred 
in the short-lived “Bunheads.” 
After four episodes, it’s clear that 
the show revels in Foster, but it 
doesn’t quite have the supporting 
material to create an interesting 
series around her.

“Younger” follows the recently-

divorced Liza Miller (Sutton), a 
40-year-old woman trying to break 
back into the publishing industry 
after taking time off to raise her 
daughter (newcomer Tessa Alb-
ertson). After being berated for her 
age in an interview, she meets Josh 
(Nico Tortorella, “Make it or Break 
It”) at a bar. Josh thinks she’s in 
her 20s, so she decides to pretend 
to be 26. When she does, she lands 
a job as an assistant to Diana Trout 
(Miriam Shor, “Hedwig and the 
Angry Inch”) the head of market-
ing of a major publisher, and she 
meets Kelsey (Hilary Duff, “Lizzie 
McGuire”), Diana’s publisher.

If “Younger” has one saving 

grace, it’s the leading lady. On 
“Bunheads” and her other Broad-
way performances, Foster proved 
her wry sense of humor, which 
she uses effectively on this show. 
She plays off of her fellow actors 
well, as it is clear she and Duff 
have genuine comedic chemistry. 
However, what makes her per-
formance strong is how, over the 
course of multiple episodes, she 
elucidates Liza’s vulnerability and 
uncertainty surrounding her work 

and relationship. She doesn’t get to 
show the range that she showed 
in “Bunheads” but she does more 
work than what’s on the page, 
making the series better as a result.

Unfotunately, the show around 

Foster isn’t nearly as strong. It 
tries to be funny, and some jokes 
work thanks to Foster (about 
Liza’s inability to use social 
media). However, the rest of the 
show’s humor comes off as lazy. 
If viewers took a shot each time 
they heard a line about lazy, enti-
tled, bratty millennials, they’d 
probably die. It’s one thing if the 
show quips about the concept a 
few times in an episode, but that 
one-note idea is the center of all 
the humor in the office. Comedies 
become boring after they berate 
the audience with punchlines 
written using a thesaurus.

If it wasn’t for Sutton Fos-

ter, “Younger” would be ter-
rible, especially for someone 
completely out of the target audi-
ence. However Foster’s genuinely 
funny and moving performance 
elevates the show from forget-
table to bearable.

I 

have never had much 
patience for masculinity. Or 
at least, not the restrictive 

and gendered version of masculin-
ity, all machismo, beer and hot 
wings, and the 
eschewal of 
any emotion 
or sincerity. 
I have been 
quoted saying 
that Captain 
Von Trapp 
from “The 
Sound of 
Music” is the 
only “manly 
man” I have 
ever loved. And even he had his 
moments of vulnerability — if 
“Edelweiss” didn’t make you go 
weak at the knees then you’re a 
lying robot.

Masculinity in pop culture 

takes on many forms. Sometimes 
it’s the central code of what we 
watch — wrestling, Bud Light 
commercials and “Two and a 
Half Men” all thrive on the idea 
of masculinity, that biological/
sociological creed that makes 
dudes dudes. But pop culture 
can also criticize masculinity. 
Sometimes 
it’s 
by 
showing 

counterpoints, like J.D. and Turk’s 
nine-season long “bromance” on 
“Scrubs,” which was sincerely 
intimate and nuanced. Sometimes 
masculinity 
— 
meaning, 
the 

negative stereotype of macho 
dude-ness — can be criticized 
by showing it at its worst, most 
manfully harmful. This is the case 
with Netflix’s “Bloodline.”

A Netflix original from Todd and 

Glenn Kessler, the masterminds 
behind the oft-overlooked but 
excellent “Damages,” “Bloodline” 
is a dark, studied tale of family 
and revenge, loyalty and lies. The 
Rayburns are a storied Southern 

family, owners of an inn on an 
island at the tip of the Florida Keys. 
Led by ukulele-playing patriarch 
Robert (Sam Shepard, “August”), 
it’s clear from episode one, scene 
one that the Rayburns are not the 
upstanding Floridians they make 
themselves out to be.

Responsible, 
dependable, 

good guy second brother John 
is the narrator and supposed 
protagonist, and he is played 
with strong-jawed consistency by 
Kyle Chandler. Through him we 
learn of his fuck-up older brother 
Danny’s return to the island — 
a return that is anything but 
prodigal. Season one examines 
the impact mysterious Danny’s 
return has on the lives of the entire 
family, slowly twisting its way 
through the tangled lies and knee-
deep resentment lying below the 
Rayburns’ chilled-out surface.

Unlike “Damages,” which was 

fueled by its two strong female 
characters, both brilliant and 
calculating 
and 
unapologetic, 

“Bloodline” is all about the men. 
Distant and formidable Robert, 
family man and island hero John, 
their volatile and boorish youngest 
brother Kevin, and Danny — sly, 
wounded and threatening.

Masculinity is the lynchpin of 

“Bloodline.” The brothers idolize 
and fear their father, whose violent 
tendencies are reflected in all three 
of them. Danny is rejected by the 
rest of the family because he failed 
in the most masculine of tests — 
protecting their sister when it 
mattered most. Conflicts, both 
real and imagined, are addressed 
with fists and baseball bats and 
“fuck you”s. And when they aren’t 
fighting they are swearing, fishing, 
drinking or fucking. These are 
men, and the overt masculinity 
would be offensive — an affront 
to the lack of similar complexity 

afforded the female characters 
— if they all weren’t so obviously 
messed up.

By the end of the intense 

season it’s clear that none of these 
characters are redeemable, their 
constant violence and bullishness 
inextricably 
tied 
to 
their 

relationship with their father, to 
their own sense of self, to their 
manhood. We aren’t supposed to 
respect them and their blustering 
strength — this masculinity is 
the hamartia of them all. In fact, 
the only likable male character, 
Meg Rayburn’s cop fiancé Marco, 
is doomed because of his very 
sensitivity — he is willing to be 
vulnerable in ways the Rayburns 
just can’t handle.

“Bloodline” is as bloody and 

clannish as its name suggests. 
There is a point in episode 13, 
when things have begun to 
unravel, that John needs to 
counsel his younger brother. He 
tells Kevin to “be a man.” The 
irony is that it’s their “manliness” 
that 
has 
gotten 
them 
into 

trouble — their hotheadedness, 
inability to compromise, fierce 
loyalty to a troubled father 
and dangerous competition as 
brothers. This is a show about 
men, about a lineage of men 
supposedly bigger and better 
than the world around them. But 
the Rayburn men are not placed 
on thrones, and their violent 
actions are not gratuitous — the 
Kesslers 
progressively 
show 

that their downfall is rooted in 
this anarchic, archaic role of 
masculinity. The truth is, if they 
all were a little more like Marco, 
the “Bloodline” Keys would be a 
much more tranquil place.

Gadbois is drinking beer and 

lifting waits. Give her your football 

tickets at gadbonat@umich.edu.

GENDER AND MEDIA COLUMN

The toxic manly 
men of ‘Bloodline’

B

Younger

Series 
Premiere 
Tuesdays 
at 10 p.m.

TV Land

NATALIE 

GADBOIS

TV REVIEW