Stephen Colbert and the Economics of Fake

When the Super PAC earnings were released at the end of January, the world learned that Stephen Colbert’s PAC, which he really has “nothing” to do with and is “run” by Jon Stewart, had raised enough cash to tip over into seven figures. Pause to ponder: a million dollars of real money raised for a fake political action committee.

I had to really consider the implications. As a true believer in the power of fiction to be more-real-than-real, particularly when reality becomes preposterous, this fiction felt big-sweater-cozy. And as a person with an interest in the history of American humor, particularly the use of satire to lampoon political stupidity, I am well-aware that Colbert’s efforts — though updated through the use of contemporary media — find their great-times-many-grandparentage in the likes of Irving, Lowell, and even Ben Franklin. And, certainly, it’s no surprise that discussions have raged about the impact of Colbert’s PAC, but it’s the money that struck me as significant.

In a toilet-bowl economy and election year — where people have less money to spend and more reason, in theory, to spend it on their political beliefs — people are investing in satire. Real money for a fake message.

But the message — clear as a bell, really — isn’t fake at all, and that’s why I find this investment to be so fascinating and brilliant. By funding this PAC, American voices have funded the role that satire plays in drawing attention to the ridiculous, like the Citizens United decision and the outright lies pedaled in “real” Super PAC ads. By purloining the medium, Colbert has, on multiple fronts and to great affect, influenced the message.

Of course there are questions about over-saturation or a joke-gone-too-far, but I’m not particularly worried about that. The political theater of last year and this is a joke-gone-too-far, and it’s only January. The more Colbert’s PAC rages on, the more fundamentally ridiculous it becomes, the more in line with the level of Theatre perpetrated by the “real” political army marching toward what promises to be the most Fox News-worthy election ever, the more historically significant Colbert’s scheme becomes.

Some suggest that the overall efforts of Colbert and Stewart, while significant in the grand historical context of American satire and humor, do not promote a change in the political discussion. In short, their viewers have already drank the Kool Aid, and these comedians’ shows merely become part of a discussion that is already happening — they are not a value-add. However, I am anecdotally unconvinced. If the Fox News heads and radio hawks are giving Colbert’s “political agenda” real time, and they are, we know he is onto something culturally significant in the now. He, like his friend Stewart, has tapped into that magical moment where the question is asked, “Should we take this guy seriously?” Once the question is asked, it’s clear that the answer is already “yes.”

So despite the reality that there are real people-serving organizations that could be served by the donations going to Colbert’s Super PAC, there is an alternate reality that is of perhaps headier importance: investment in Colbert’s PAC is an investment in a conversation that absolutely needs to happen. It’s a way of participating in a joke-that-is-deadly-serious. Our country is on a screwy path where the investments of a few cloud the conversation, and investment in this satire is well-placed: 100% of the proceeds go to keep the dominant rhetoricians in check, to force them to engage in the surreal in order to peel back the layers and expose what is real.

What Colbert Will Do With the Money

Be True to Your Soap–It’s Better Than That Other Crap

So I gather today is the day that ABC tosses aside decades of soap history and replaces it with a rag-tag crew of people talking about things that 20 other shows are already talking about. Of course, it’s about the money, not the conversation, and ABC will save tons of it even if this foray into boredom is a relative failure. Goodbye Erica Kane and All My Children, hello chat show creatively named The Chew (get it? They talk while they eat food–The Chew!).

But I hope it’s a complete failure–the kind that makes the suits (mostly male) reevaluate their choice to dismiss and disenfranchise generations of (mostly female) viewers, albeit in dwindling numbers.

Soaps ain’t Shakespeare. We all are well aware. Even at their best, they’re not the best thing on TV (General Hospital will never be Mad Men). But their narratives allow viewers and creators alike a unique opportunity to participate in lived stories over time. Even The Simpsons can’t compete with the longevity of a single soap. Perhaps most significantly, soap opera is a genre aimed specifically at women. There’s been a load of discussion about whether this is a good or bad thing throughout the years; however, it is nonetheless the case. In a media landscape where women are treated as a second-class audience, soaps add a for-better-or-worse alternative to perpetually pandering to men.

Now, of course, we can go back and forth regarding whether soaps are simply a ghetto for “women’s stories” filtered through the male gaze–and I think that’s a pretty valid argument. But we cannot dismiss that they, with their interwoven narratives and elephantesque memories, play a significant role in the history of ecriture feminine…whatever that means. Furthermore, we cannot deny the impact of the stories and families and valid discussions of topics like HIV/AIDS, sexuality, and rape (sometimes bungled horribly, see re: Luke and Laura; and sometimes handled deftly with the benefit of long-term impact that we could never get out of a mere season of TV). What’s more, these stories create a framework over time–a way to consider how these discussions change. While a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of a show like Law and Order seems ridiculously outdated within six months of its original airdate, soap stories build over decades, revisiting and re-imagining their own histories in order to change with the times. Characters and narratives evolve. Of course, an argument can be made that, where women’s issues are concerned, soaps can be downright reactionary, but the discussion is happening in more or less real time. We can reject the soap approach to women–that aforementioned male gaze–but we cannot negate the movement of this discussion through time and space. Soaps provide a benchmark with which to measure progress, even if they often lag behind in progressing.

Luke and Laura's Wedding in 1981 drew 30 million viewers

Lastly, we rarely give soaps their due when it comes to the way they’ve influenced prime time TV. Some viewers simply balk at the melodrama of the woman-who-was-shot-by-her-husband-with-a-bullet-that-was-meant-for-her-lover-while-giving-birth-to-their-child (yeah, this happened), but they forget to look at the tapestry–the design behind the drama. The mega-popularity of Luke and Laura on General Hospital in the early 80′s infiltrated TV at all levels, and, by the end of the decade, TV had transformed from A/B story one-offs (picture the A-Team and the freeze frame ending) to complex worlds in which viewers are trusted to follow a dozen characters over multiple seasons (ergo Mad Men). The pedigree that brings us The Chew is far less prestigious.

In fact, The Chew and its ilk, overtly striving for a female audience, take a step backward from soaps. They make no effort to legitimize women as intelligent viewers; rather, they asks far less of them in the way of participation, memory, and interaction. There is no narrative–topics are fleeting. Of course, I haven’t watched The Chew, but I’ve watched The View, which is insipid to the point of being offensive, and, since ABC is positioning this new show as more fun and less hard work for the audience, I’m guessing it’s an intellectual coma zone.

In light of all this daytime navel-gazing, I for one want to see the remaining soaps pull through this low period. As troubling as soap operas can be, I do not necessarily wish to live in a TV world without them. Sadly, however, this seems more and more inevitable. If and when the end does come, I think–on the balance–the media landscape for women viewers will be a less interesting place. Perhaps soap operas do add to a sort of media ghetto into which “women’s stories” are deprioritized by a male hegemony, but their absence will not create space for new, dynamic stories aimed at women. Their loss will just leave a void.

Luke with Luke and Laura's offspring, aptly named Lucky and Lulu

A Not Completely Ungrateful Letter to the Members of the Academy

Dear Emmy Voters,

I’d be a total moron to look a gift horse in the mouth. You honored Margo Martindale, who, more than any other performer this year, earned the statue you gave her. You didn’t allow affection for Steve Carrell (I mean who doesn’t love Steve Carrell? He’s delightful!) to overshadow the strength of Jim Parsons’s work on Big Bang Theory even though he won last year (really, all this shows is that, even in a crowded field of talented guys, his work rises above).

Lastly, you–gasp!–honored television’s most human show with two significant awards: one for writing, and one for acting.

So here goes: gift horse, mouth.

Maybe last year would have been a better time to give Friday Night Lights its due, providing an Emmy-fueled boost into its fifth season, perhaps driving it forward to a sixth. Again, I’m not complaining. Not too much. I’m just sayin’.

Because the truth is, the world is a better place when Coach, Mrs. Coach, and the Dillon Lions/Panthers are in it.

Your friend,

Mr. F.

Torchwood Is Totally Queer

Over the course of the past month, Chereth and I have watched every episode of Torchwood. It started innocently enough with a geeky summer Dr. Who fling. But once we met Cpt. Jack Harkness, a handsome, polyamorous immortal friend of the Doctor’s, we wanted more more more. This led us to the darker, dirtier, deeper spin-off.

On the show, Torchwood is the name of a secret British alien-hunting agency, and the branch in Cardiff, Wales, monitors a time rift through which all sorts of gnarly beings slip. Pause: yes, I said Cardiff, where both Dr. Who and Torchwood are/were filmed. But the rift and the aliens and all the sci-fi hullabaloo are what make the show genre, not what make it queer.

And the fact that Torchwood is unapologetically queer–decidedly and uniquely so–is what makes it stand out from most, perhaps all, other shows on television.

There have been plenty of gay shows. Cue The L-Word. And there are shows with gay characters on them, but Torchwood is queer, not gay, and it’s queer at its core, not as a side concern or as a backdrop for humor.

The queerness of Torchwood comes right back to Cpt. Jack, who defies labels. He’s already immortal, and therefore less concerned with what people may think of him than a mere mortal might be. His affections are neither traditional nor particular: he’s been around long enough that love and loss are tied up in one big (sometimes depressing) shag fest. In one notable arc, Buffy‘s James Marsters, with his usual swagger, shows up as one of Jack’s exes, adding a certain amount of star power to Jack’s myriad escapades. Jack’s a downright slutty guy who’s lived thousands of years, so a lover must have to be pretty stand out if he doesn’t want to be forgotten.

Certainly, as Torchwood moves through its four seasons, Jack notably has more men in his bed than women, though the show never worries about defining his sexuality. He speaks of boyfriends past, and we know he was married to at least one woman, but these are accepted as tales of a life well-lived. No one dwells on what it means to be bi-sexual or gay or any other thing: Jack is just queer, and this is celebrated nonchalantly.

In comparison, American television, even the best of it, tends to define its characters’ sexuality, noting who is gay or lesbian (the most typical), bi-sexual (only occasionally), or transgender (quite rare); on this side of the pond, we love to draw attention to our own open-mindedness, betraying, of course, a sense of othering. What is so truly queer about Torchwood is its ability to exist comfortably in a queer space. Jack’s snog sessions with Torchwood’s dapper guy Friday, Ianto Jones, are not differently defined from those between Gwen (the show’s other main character) and her boyfriend/fiance/husband, Rhys. What’s more, it’s not just Jack who leaps across the traditional barriers of sexuality: all but one of the show’s central characters has at least one same-sex snog. And that’s just season one.

Quick side note: if you Google “Captain Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones” and click on the image gallery, what you will find, in addition to various photos of the two locked in sweet embrace, is a smattering of photos in which bois and girls photograph themselves dressed as Jack and Ianto, recreating iconic moments from the show. In terms of Torchwood‘s queer reach, this is thoroughly compelling. Clearly, these two are not merely identified as a gay couple (Ianto, in fact, clarifies to his sister that he’s not necessarily gay–he’s just all about Jack) but as exemplars of queerness–categorically impossible to categorize, emulated for their ability to pass through binaries rather than be defined by them.

Now back to the show.

In season four, the U.S. happens, and things get a bit gayer.

In the show’s fourth season, which just wrapped a dual run on Starz and the BBC, Jack and Gwen go stateside when everyone on earth suddenly becomes immortal–and Jack Harkness is suddenly just a man. The American influence is keenly felt when Rex, a new addition to the team played by Mekhi Phifer, drops various comments about how Jack is gay. Suddenly, Jack has to defend his sexuality through jokes–for example telling a paramedic to take good care of his “boyfriend,” Rex. While it is understandable that some vestiges of homophobia are realistic in macho American society, situations like these whittle away at the accepted universe of Torchwood in which there are aliens and rifts in time and boys who like girls who like boys who like boys who like girls. In Torchwood of old, the aliens were the Big Surprise; the queer folk were just your every day human beings. In Torchwood: Miracle Day, aliens are only a passing part of the conversation, but Jack’s gayness, as he is now portrayed as almost solely interested in men, is part of what reminds us of his difference–the last mortal, a man out of time, and gay. What once made him human–proof that he was flesh and blood though, perhaps, a bit more “innovative” (according to Ianto) than others–now is a mark of his difference. And, while Miracle Day is an interesting story, I found myself missing my Jack Harkness–one not so set apart, not so easily defined by external perceptions.

The most standout episode of Miracle Day was penned by Jane Espenson, perhaps television’s greatest ringer writer. You need love and angst and sex and blood? Bring in Buffy and Battlestar Galactica alum Espenson. She’ll up the stakes, bring the funny, and deepen the emotion. There’s really no one better, and the episode detailing the sad and chilling tale of Jack’s 1927 affair with a newly immigrated Italian man, Angelo, who struggles with his sexuality and Catholicism, really delves into the complexity of Jack’s circumstance. Ultimately, though Angelo has to confront his own upbringing and feelings of difference, it is Jack’s immortality that he cannot accept. Honestly, I was missing Jack through most of Miracle Day. His presence had diminished, his flirtatiousness muted, his queerness tokenized. This episode, the season’s 7th of 10, is the first real, complex, and messy reminder of what makes Cpt. Jack Harkness so extraordinary–and so damn human. Hint: it’s not because he shags guys.

Which all leads to this: It’s not yet clear whether Torchwood will be back for another season. I hope it is. And if it does return, I hope it gets back to Torchwood Cardiff, where being queer does not make a person any more different than being Welsh does. But, if it does not return, I hope that Torchwood takes its rightful place in TV history for changing the conversation from one of binaries–in which all people are coded as gay/not gay, minority/not minority, attractive/funny looking–to one that celebrates the great primordial stew that is humanity.

Rubican’t

I get that even a cable netlet that shepherds excellent-but-ratings-challenged shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad can’t be expected to stand behind the severely under-watched Rubicon, which averaged something like a dismal .4 share in its first season. Still, this smart, subtle program will be dearly missed.

As much as anything else, this was a show about architecture–the building up and breaking down of postmodern angles; the intertwining of people with space and the way that insularity can cause even a brilliant character like Will (James Badge Dale) to wear blinders; the machinations of design built by the scheming-and-evil-yet-strangely-likeable Truxton Spangler (Michael Cristofer); the sparsely populated, antiseptic and cubist world of Kal Ingram (Arliss Howard). Rubicon was as sharp as its angles, as circuitous as the halls, stairs, bridges, and roofs that inhabited each episode. Some viewers found its pace sluggish, its lack of revelatory materials to be frustrating. I’d say they missed the incredible ability this show had to pull back and reveal complex personalities rather than simple twists and turns. It, and its admonishing of the corporate/government web that drives American political realities, will be sorely missed.

Ten Actors Whose Names You Should Know

10. Enver Gjokaj
Gjokaj is one of the many actors on Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse with an unpronounceable name. Dollhouse is a unique opportunity for the actors who get to play “dolls,” people who have their identities wiped clean and replaced with various personas, because they play a diverse stash of characters. Playing the doll Victor has been the perfect milieu for Gjokaj’s talents—a promising look at what this young actor can do.

9. Andrea Anders
I bet Anders hopes you don’t hold Joey against her. But now that she’s on Better off Ted, her comic chops really shine. She’s funny, odd, quirky, and adorably mid-western.

8. Aziz Ansari
You probably know him best from his angry Twitter message, but this young comedian has recently taken off as the resident asshole, Tom, on Parks and Recreation and as the unwatchable comedian Randy on Funny People. It’s hard to get a sense of where the comedy ends and the person who Ansari is begins—and that’s a good thing for funny.

7. Carla Gallo
Judd Apatow has made stars of his in-group of boys from his television days; however, the women have struggled a bit more to break into his mega-hit comedies. Still, you can find Undeclared‘s Gallo getting kicked in the face by Steve Carell or crotch-bleeding on Jonah Hill in the Apatow oeuvre. Keep your eye on her as a young porn star on Californication. And maybe Apatow will write her a role that matches her promise.

6. Kat Dennings
Also a graduate of 40-Year Old Virgin, Dennings cut her teeth screeching about teen sex from behind a bathroom door. Equal parts adorable, quirky, and every-girl, Dennings also starred as Michael Cera’s romantic partner in Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist.

5. Demián Bichir
The Mexican actor who plays Esteban Reyes, the proud papa of Nancy Botwin’s newest progeny, can only be described as sexy/scary. He’s beyond handsome—the kind of guy who talks to thermostats just to turn up the heat. And he somehow pulls off being equal parts sympathetic and psychotic, a perfect match for a woman who is as repellent as she is irresistible.

4. Rosemarie DeWitt
DeWitt has had a big couple of years, playing the uber-enlightened Midge on Mad Men, the title character in Rachel Getting Married, and Charmaine, Toni Collette’s selfish sister on The United States of Tara. She has made a career of playing second fiddle to big, enigmatic characters, and she still manages to get noticed.

3. Aaron Paul
Now that Paul is nominated for an Emmy, maybe you’ll remember his name as much as you remember his characters. Causing viewer schizophrenia playing sweet-hearted, upstanding Scott on Big Love and beyond-fucked-up-meth-head Jesse on Breaking Bad, Paul has become a must-see element of some seriously must-see shows.

2. Chris Pratt
You’re going to laugh, but I first noticed Pratt when he played Everwood‘s affable dumb stud, Bright. Now he’s Andy on Parks and Recreation, and, seriously, every word this guy says is gold. He’s surrounded by some big-time comic talent, and he’s the funniest damn thing on the show. I could watch him deliver lines all day long.

1. Callum Keith Rennie
There’s always that one actor you would watch tie his shoes. Rennie is that guy right now. He spooked the crap out of me as BSG’s Leoben and then romanced me within an inch of my life as Californication’s Lew Ashby, may he rest in Best Character Ever peace. He should be in everything. Preferably wearing a kilt.

Dollhouse: T- 2 Days

Joss Whedon returns to television this Friday. Whet your appetite with this Salon interview.

And don’t forget to watch.

Checking Out the Foil-iage

Somehow, the season’s two greatest shows have managed to up the ante on everything this year.  As they air back-to-back, it’s sort of awesome that their season’s design is thoroughly simpatico, these parallel universes of moral ambiguity in the face of moral absence.

Except, you know, one is about a womanizer and one is about a serial killer.

Both Dexter and Californication added a new character this season—a foil to their central guy.  This is no new literary or filmic approach, but it is a tried and true way to show that your character, flawed as he may be, is not as flawed as he could be.

But not all foils are equal, and these particular shows with two of the best actors on television anchoring the action faced a tall challenge in getting the right guy.

Enter Jimmy Smits and Callum Keith Rennie. 

But first, let’s talk about the big guys, because there are few guys that loom larger than Dexter Morgan and Hank Moody.

My favorite thing about Dexter is that he doesn’t suffer fools.  If he likes someone, he fakes the rest.  But the fact that he finds something to like about them is not insignificant.  People who bother or annoy him fall into the background.  The only fools he does suffer are those he plans to kill, and they’re ultimately closer to him than his family and friends.  He may despise them, but he’s also thankful for them.  If they weren’t unrepentant murderers, his life would have no meaning.  But Dex would never go out of his way to manipulate an innocent person if that person were meaningless to him, and this creates a huge blind spot for him because his emotional development is…let’s say arrested.

Hank, on the other hand, suffers many fools…but not very well.  He’s Dexter’s opposite in so many ways—analytical where Dexter is literal.  But he also has a code.  He tries, at the best of his ability, to treat people with (some) respect.  His morality is more slippery than most, but he does have a barometer (he’ll sleep with a 16-year old when he thinks she’s legal, but then protects her vigilantly once he learns her real age, despite her horrible treatment of him).  Hank merely wants to do right by the people he loves.  He just usually fucks it up. 

The foils introduced on each of these shows are not without their charms.  Smits’s Miguel Prado is an Assistant District Attorney dedicated to putting away the bad guy.  He’s a bit off, however, taking an immediate interest in Dexter and displaying a serious amount of moral flexibility in service of what he perceives to be the greater good.  But what is so fascinating about him, what has made this season of Dexter so compelling, is that he is impossible to anticipate.  Each show ends with the incredibly tense feeling of “What the fuck will Miguel do now?”  And his character, like Dexter’s, is so well designed that none of these moments feel like empty, M. Night Shayamalan-esque twists.  Every shocking turn is anchored in a well-designed character.  And through this design, the viewer learns more and more about the titular character, what he’s willing to do to feel real camaraderie, and how he manages betrayal.  Miguel, an alarmingly compelling creation (this is an entirely new side of Jimmy Smits), makes Dexter loom even larger, and ups the stakes to give Showtime’s favorite serial killer his best season yet.

Hank’s foil, Lew Ashby, has had a similar effect.  Rennie is so all at once sexy, charming, and morally bereft that he makes the viewer desire a cold shower—and then a very very hot one.  He is every inch the lothario Hank is, but where Hank wears his self-loathing on his sleeve, Lew’s is buried beneath his anything-goes veneer, only to surface when he muses about the loss of his true lady love.  As Hank writes Lew’s biography—the story of a Hollywood music producing sensation, he learns that the heart of the man is tethered to a remarkably fetching woman.  And he realizes that his own salvation shares this source.  The difference, of course, is that Lew is less compelled to do the right thing—his woman is more remote, longer in the past, not as connected to him as Hank is to Karen.  What has become clearer and clearer to the viewer is that it is because of this central relationship that we love Hank–it defines his moral center–and we are grateful for it.  So the existence of Lew, who brings comedy as well as commentary, not only elevates the greatness of Hank; he gives us a deeper understanding of Karen. 

This season has been all over the place for my favorite shows; while Showtime has been hitting it out of the park (Weeds had its best season, as well), other nets and netlets have faltered.  Mad Men was great, Pushing Daisies is delightful but canceled, Heroes is an unwatchable mess—things are a little wild out there in TeeVeeland.  But one thing is for sure—we can count on the Boys of Sunday to entertain and shock, delight and despair.  TGIS.

Pushing Up Daisies

Dear ABC,

You suck.  Pushing Daisies is awesome.  So what if no one watches it (they suck, too)?  The mere fact that people watch Dancing With the Stars is not an indication that the horrid piece of dreck should be on 5 days a week.  

xoxo

Mr. F.

Next time: Dear Fox, you suck.

Broadcast News

Last night, NBC covered the DNC for an hour. They began with a 3-minute clip of Ted Kennedy’s speech, and then talked about how wonderful and meaningful his speech was for a full half hour. They showed Michelle Obama’s full speech, which I almost felt thankful for after the Teddy debacle, as if I should thank them for showing the actual news rather than talking about it.

The fact that this is a dangerous state of affairs should come as no surprise to anyone. Albert Brooks has a line in Broadcast News that’s been playing in my head. Brooks, a field reporter, jokes: “let us never forget that we are the news.” His character thinks journalism is losing the battle to personalities–to selling itself. He thinks William Hurt’s character, a coifed idiot who can’t write his own copy, is the devil. Films like this and Network have served as notably ironic warnings for decades. Now, with the news firmly filtered through TV’s talking heads, cut up to create a narrative for us, we have lost some sense of reality. Watching it on any level makes me a little crazy.

So tonight I tape seven hours of C-Span. I can’t wait!