Could they really help, wondered Christine? Lindsay explained that before she had submitted to a Marley makeover, she’d been wasting her life by completing her doctorate and staying up to date on world events. Marley and Lindsay are two of the supporting characters on Julia Lousie-Dreyfuss' five-year-old sitcom and they are two very shallow, often very mean blonds. Or as Marley might argue, perfection -- at least for her.
They quickly turned Christine into their triplet and insisted she also dress as them. It was a new experience for Christine and one that spun the plot around in surprising ways, including pulling in an unrelated Barb (Wanda Sykes) subplot in the final moments of the show.
It played to various levels of funny from slapstick, to innuendo, to parody, to allusions. The New Adventures of Old Christine not only boasts one of the strongest leads (Emmy winner Julia), it also boasts a rich cast with diverse approaches and strengths. And you might take a moment to wonder why the gas bags don’t tell you that?
Ken Tucker is among the most sexist TV critics today and, for some strange reason, he’s allowed not only to do his damage at Entertainment Weekly but also as a member of Terry Gross Fresh Air posse -- her all male TV posse.
And always desperate to butch it up, the boys manage to ignore women. In fact, a 'year-in-review' by David Banculli managed to 'forget' that women even existed on prime time. Even stranger, that 'year-in-review' was presented as a conversation with Terry Gross and she never objected to his rendering women invisible. Well, maybe not so strange, when has she ever objected to rendering (other) women invisible?
The often brilliant, always hilarious Ugly Betty aired its final episode last week and, though there was much lamenting of a TV show killed when it still had much to offer, it went off the air without Terry’s Male Posse noting it.
And that's a surprise only if you're the NPR ombudsperson. Anyone else will surely not be surprised. Terry Gross has ten critics on her show, only one is a woman and she covers books -- which is apparently more genteel and 'ladylike' than the 'manly' art of TV criticism. Or is that sport? 'Manly' sport of TV criticism?
They work really hard to pretend otherwise but there's nothing all that manly about Ken, David or John Powers. In fact, we bet we could take all three of them in a bar fight without breaking a sweat let alone a nail.
John Powers is officially a movie critic but sometimes he's so taken with an actor or a basic cable program, he feels the need to weigh in on TV. Strangely enough, when he does, he raves over this man or that man and never feels the need to note that the program features backlash storylines for women. No, he only sprouts a sudden (and uninformed) interest in feminism when he's getting ready to rip Sandra Bullock to shreds.
While all three are sexist piggies, John's closest to the 'people' in that David and Ken generally foam at the mouth raving over HBO or Showtime offerings forgetting that the "P" in NPR stands for "Public." Though John doesn't appear to catch much broadcast TV, at least he aims for basic cable. The reality remains that most Americans don't have HBO or Showtime. That was the reality before our current Great Recession and it remains the reality. As Jenji Kohan (creator and executive producer of Weeds) told Claude Brodesser-akner (Advertising Age) in 2007, "Showtime is great, but it does have a limited audience."
David and Ken aren't interested in reality. Which is how they ignore Weeds and United States of Tara and any show in which an actress does more than deliver a cup of coffee.
Last week, we were noting the rampant sexism on display in the Tina Fey hosted Saturday Night Live. And we expected that to be it. We'd note it. We'd get slammed for it and praised for it in e-mails and that would really be it. As Marcia pointed out last Sunday night, recent history did appear to be repeating as the usual suspects put their critical thinking caps in the deep freeze. But that didn't remain the case and a lot of women participated in a push back throughout the week.
Which is really great news because it's not going to be an issue non-feminists worry over ("Will this lose us viewers!") until feminist treat it like the very real issue it is. And last week, feminists explored it, weighed in and debated. While non-feminists in the MSM never had a clue. It wasn't just, for example, that last Sunday evening the Los Angeles Times' was praising the nonsense without reservation, it was that this lavish (and knee jerk) praise for Fey's sexist comedy continued at other outlets all week. With the exceptions of Slate and Salon, you'd be hard pressed to visit any 'general interest' site and know that a healthy and vocal debate was going on among women about the 'humor' Tina Fey served up.
At this site, Ty noted the e-mails were 97% in favor and 3% opposed. One of the opposed stuck out to Ty and he passed the e-mail on to us. We'll dub the e-mailer Jock Mannish.
Jock is convinced that "the real problem is you don't like funny." We could debate that with a thousand offline examples but we'll stick to online. You'll have a real hard time finding any critics that have advocated on behalf of sitcoms the way we have in the last six years. Yes, ABC has carved out a new night for sitcoms (Wednesday) and now other networks are suddenly interested in exploring whether they could do that as well; however, that's a recent development from this TV season. For years and years, while we advocated for funny, the Water Cooler Set repeatedly churned out "The Death of the Sitcom."
Jock also maintains "and you don't like Tina Fey." We loathe her now. We've been honest about that for some time. We openly campaigned against her to ensure she didn't win Best Actress at last year's Emmys and, as usual, Tina helped us out there by making a statement that no real actress would make. We only had to repeat that public quote a few times and the image was set: Not an actress.
But you can search the archives and you'll find we praised Tina Fey many, many times. We praised 30 Rock as well in its first season. It was a funny show and one that offered promise. But characters have to develop as a series goes along. Ted Baxter in season one of The Mary Tyler Moor Show is one dimensional and it takes many episodes (and the introduction of Georgette) for him to really become a fully dimensional character. 30 Rock has had time to develop and a real writer would have ensured that happen. Instead, increasingly unbelievable events and storylines take place and the show gets campier and campier.
It also gets more and more anti-women as it goes along. There are really just two female characters in the cast: Liz and Jenna. (Don't bring up the blond, she's usually forgotten.) That's not just insulting, it's walking it back. When the show started, there was Liz and Jenna but, now forgotten, there was a third actress on every week.
Rachel Dratch. We're not supposed to remember that. We're not supposed to remember that Tina (and Lorne) sold the show, in part, on Rachel. NBC was more than nervous about a show revolving around Tina Fey who didn't do skits on SNL, just sat behind the anchor desk. Alec Baldwin added to the cast made them feel better because his Will & Grace work had demonstrated he was hilarious. They weren't sure about Tracy Morgan either because of his behavior issues. But Rachel Dratch? She was one half of "The Lovers," she was Sheldon, she was Zazu, she was Debbie Downer!!!! There might be some funny in that. (It's also forgotten now but in its first season, NBC and critics bet everything on Studio 60 and 30 Rock was the 'inferior' product in their eyes.)
There's a theory two behind the scenes toss around which goes Tina used Rachel to get her show on the air but the suits' interest in Rachel resulted in Tina ensuring that Rachel would be a temporary presence. (She was gone by the first half-season.) The theory argues that was done by refusing to give Rachel a character. Rachel, originally cast as Jenna, was instead basically strip-mined for laughs with Tina writing her as an animal handler one week and something else the next. Week after week, she played a different character with a different name.
You really think that audiences are going to buy that? Tina Fey's many things but no one's called her stupid yet. She knew what she was doing.
And if you doubt that -- or that the Queen Bee mentality was at work -- just check out the cast with us. The characters are Liz (female), Jack, Tracy, Jenna (female and played brilliantly by Jane Krakowski whom we hope will soon be on another show), Kenneth, Pete, Frank, Cerie (the female airhead who is hardly ever on and takes up more background than lines when she is), Toofer, Josh, Dot Com, Grizz, Jonathan, JD and Danny.
That's 11 male characters and, if you're generous, there are three female characaters. If you're generous and consider Cerie anything more than a walking sex joke and pretend that she gets actual scenes. The show started with three women in the foreground (Liz, Jenna and Rachel's rotating characters) and far fewer men. It's fallen backwards.
Early on the Bush-loving, Condi Rice dating, Dick Cheney dependent Jack (Alec Baldwin) was the dark side. He was the "suit" and the creative types knew to stay the hell away from him. He wanted GE products put in every TGS skit, he was the enemy. That's an important detail, for example, when considering Rosemary.
Rosemary was a character who appeared in one episode (played by Carrie Fisher). She was a former writer for Laugh In, now pushing her autobiography and Liz dragged Pete (or one of the writers, they all look alike) to a book signing. It was a crowded book signing, by the way. Liz gushed and Rosemary offered to have lunch with her. Over lunch, Liz declared that Rosemary should come to work for TGS. Rosemary agreed and immediately began pitching skits that were too controversial for Liz. Liz stated that the network would never go for them. Rosemary ended up going to Jack to pitch them. To her face, Jack pretended to agree but then told Liz to fire Rosemary. Instead, Liz walked out with Rosemary.
Liz and Rosemary were going to team up and write their own show, they decided, en route to Rosemary's apartment -- in a section of NYC known as "Little Chechnya." Worse than the neighborhood was the apartment itself and the revelations about Rosemary that came one after the other. She was a drug user, she was terminally unemployed, she lived in poverty (no, that does not explain her book which, at the start of the show, appeared to be warmly received by the public) and she had no one in her life (no lover, no child).
This, Jack told Liz, would be her life. And this, Jack told Liz, is what happens to women in the business when they are no longer seen as f**kable.
It was an ugly message but Jack was the bad guy, right? The black hat? The suit?
Only since that time, Jack's repeatedly turned out to be the sage. He says horrible, horrible things but they come true.
Each season has added a new layer and that has endorsed, not rejected, the statements Jack made. It's an ugly, little message for and about women and it's come from the hands of Tina Fey.
Rosemary brought up another issue. Before Jack forced Tracy (played by Tracy Morgan) off on Liz in the first show, TGS was known as The Girly Show. It was a live comedy sketch show from a female point of view. Why is it that Rosemary was Tina's first female hire? The Girly Show? It would seem to require some women writers. But all they had was Liz surrounded by a sea of men. (Check the stats for 30 Rock and you'll see that there are very few women who write for the show.)
Tina Fey created her own show and she repeatedly did so in a way that makes her an elevated princess in a world of men. She deliberately refused to stand by Rachel in the role of Jenna and then (intentionally or not) managed to write Rachel out of the series. Jack may get mocked a little in an episode but he's become the voice of God and how very sad that a show created by a woman worships so at the voice of 'male authority.'
Jock Mannish insisted that Parks and Recreation is the same show as 30 Rock and that we're not slamming it or Amy Poehler. We've given Poehler negative criticsm when she was on Saturday Night Live. We also praised Parks and Recreation but warned Amy needed to pay attention because Leslie was being pushed to the background. And that warning was proven true as season one progressed (we had seen four episodes when we did our review and read several scripts). The second season found Leslie back in the foreground and the notion of The Tom Show dispensed with (as it should be). Parks and Recreation is now dependably funny week in and week out.
It is nothing like 30 Rock. Leslie is not pathetic. She is self-deluding. She has her own warped value system. She is also pro-women and will regularly stop and correct men who make sexist remarks (like the former parks director who patted her on the head and 'explained' women couldn't think because of menstruation). She will set out to honor other women and affirm them. Leading to the episode where she's screwed over by a women's group who hands out an award for work they know Leslie did but instead gives the award to Ron (her boss) because they believe the press will care more if a woman of the year award goes to a man.
And look at the characters, there's Leslie, Ann, Mark, Tom, Ron, April, Andy, Donna and Jerry. Do you not grasp that women are more than two characters on Parks and Recreation?
And here's the most telling detail that lets you know if the people writing the show know the first thing about women: Friends. Despite having fewer women writers than 30 Rock, Parks and Recreations grasps that you want to offer a true portrait of the average women? You better include her friend. At least one.
And Leslie's best friend is Ann. They're such good friends that when Mark became interested in Ann, Leslie and Ann were able to talk it through (Leslie made out with Mark once and had carried a huge crush on him forever). Rashida Jones is a great actress and would be an asset on any show -- even 30 Rock. But, on that show, she wouldn't be Liz's best friend because, of course, Liz doesn't do female friends.
When the show started, Liz and Jenna were friends. These were the scripts originally written to be played by Tina and Rachel and maybe Tina feels a little intimidated by Jane's looks? Regardless, each season has seen Jenna become stronger and stronger friends with Kevin and Tracy. Someone starting with a new episode of 30 Rock today would never know that, when the series started Liz and Jenna were best friends and had a lengthy history together that predated The Girly Show.
30 Rock isn't content to play Tina as pathetic (and vindictive) in love, she's friendless and she's also childless -- as her character can never stop pointing out in some sort of homage to thirtysomething's own pathetic single Melissa. As Susan Faludi pointed out in Backlash, Melissa wasn't the only single person on thirtysomething. There was also Ellyn. Ellyn was the 'bad' single (the sort that Tina Fey ripped apart in her Weekend Update sketch when she did SNL), she had sex and had to be brought down. But, as Faludi pointed out, it wasn't just 'bad' Ellyn and 'pathetic' Melissa who were single on thirtysomething, there was also Gary. But his being single was never pathetic or 'bad.' Ellyn sleeps with a married man and it's a sign of mortal flaw, Gary sleeps with a married woman and no one's bothered or alarmed.
It's a double standard and it's one that Tina Fey's body of work repeatedly reinforces. By being the female mouthpiece for sexist stereotypes, she not only helps popularize them, she serves the system already in place which, in turn, rewards her with praise. It's why The New Adventures of Old Christine doesn't get talked up by Terry Gross and Ken Tucker but 30 Rock does. Tina was always male defined, it's how she became Lorne's pet on SNL. We assumed she'd move beyond that -- it is, for most women, what your early 20s are about and then you grow up. But she's refused to grow up and that was most obvious when Universal explained to her that "Bitches get things done" might be a liability to young men and boys who might be ticket buyers to Baby Mama because they tended to support Barack or a Republican male. Immediately, Tina hit the promotion circuit explaining she didn't mean the skit, she didn't support Hillary, she wasn't a feminist, she wasn't that interested in politics and on and on she yammered. One friend who interviewed her for a wire service (a man) said he'd never heard anything more pathetic. And, Jock Mannish, that's when we did our walk-away from Tina Fey and we noted that in real time.
Jock's convinced that we "want perfection in female characters." We're really starting to worry about Jack and his poor track record when it comes to women. No, we don't need perfection. Christine Campbell (New Adventures of Old Christine) is not a princess. She's not perfection. And that's very funny. But the joke is not, "Christine's single and she's a woman so therefore she's pathetic! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Christine can be pathetic, all the characters on the show can be. But for various reasons. The key to Christine is that she wants to be a good person but she's not willing to do the work. When you grasp that, when you grasp that she'd love ten fully painted fingernails but will settle for eight when in a hurry and pretend like the other two flaked off, you grasp the character. If there is a short cut to be taken, she will take it. If none exists, she will pretend one does.
Time and again, that is the joke about Christine. You saw it when she lost her phone, her purse and her money recently in the Subway and attempted to sing to earn money. In the end, it was all too much work and she went to sleep on a bench until her son's class returned from the field trip.
In front of her child's class, with slobber on her face and her blouse dangerously unbuttoned, Christine declares that she's had to survive on her wits leading Marley to declare, in front of the kids, that she needed to fix her blouse because one of her "wits" was hanging out. That scene did not paint Christine as Madame Curie. It had a ton of humor and some of the laughs were at Christine. We're not looking for perfection.
We are looking for something relatable and that requires something other than the male frame presented as universal. All Tina Fey's done is grab the male frame and speak through it. It's why her never-a-hit TV show will be back next fall even though no one watches it. Shows with far more viewers are given the axe by NBC but Tina is the little girl repeating the male commandments and so she keeps coming back, year after year. Until, as Jack warned of Rosemary, she's no longer seen as f**kable and then she's off the air. When that day comes, she'll have nothing noteworthy to look back on.
