I'm off the Aaron Sorkin train again: Being the Ricardos

 

The typical Aaron Sorkin project features characters who all have IQs of 150, and possess the exact same degree of interest in holding extremely inefficient conversations that are always branching off into a minimum of three tangents per interaction. It seems like Sorkin's characters possess the listening skills of autistic Onion News reporter Michael Falk.

I assumed that with his run of "Moneyball", "Molly's Game" and "Trial of the Chicago 7" that Sorkin found a way to temper his most irritating elements.

But "Being the Ricardos", while an exciting story, is simply Sorkin writing Sorkinesque caricatures which is a pretty bad fit when the story is about show business and Sorkin attempts to give camera blocking the same gravity as a federal trial.

It's also a problem because this story should be about the Ricardos and it's hard to believe that the Ricardos sounded like Aaron Sorkin. This has led to noticeable anachronistic language (words like  gaslighting or infantilization didn't exist in 1953) and let's not get into the charges of inaccuracy on the part of Lucy and Desi's daughter.

What's even more disturbing is the way Aaron Sorkin unethically uses his platform as a writer to justify himself. In his other train wreck "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", Sorkin used the show to air out all his grievances with the religiosity of ex Kristin Chenoweth and the show that fired him. The central character of that show (and audience avatar) was portrayed as a misunderstood genius while the other writers on the show were portrayed as hacks. 

Even when portraying other people, Sorkin champions the talent over the producers or sponsors and goes so far as to justify their egos even when they're awful people. This isn't a neutral script: It comes from a writer who famously rejected other writers' assistance when he ran "The West Wing."  Writer/producer Jess Openheimer and the episode's director are both portrayed as dolts who get in the way of true talent. This version of Lucille Ball is a Stanley Kubrick nightmare. The proper response to being woken up at 2 AM by your co-star to re-run a scene is "I am calling an agent and putting a rider in my contract that if I get woken up at this time, I walk." It's the same battle lines Sorkin employed on "Studio 60" and "The Newsroom" and it's getting old. 

When this much is going wrong, the clunky dialogue gets that much clunkier. Vivian Vance trying to tell a story to Bill Frawley over and over again (about a 7-year old accused of Communism) is intended to highlight that the two have a fun bickering rapport like they do on the show. However, it comes off as someone trying to force a conversation on someone else. Desi starting the table read with "I am the President of Desilu Productions and I say every word for the next 30 minutes is something in the script" comes off as over exposition. Bill Frawley kidding "it took three of you to write this" when he sees three names on the script (something standard at the time) is just plain lazy on the research end. And this is just one scene. 

The film has its moments and it's about an exciting topic. The acting is extraordinary. But Aaron Sorkin does not get out of his own way nearly enough and it's unfortunate so many reviewers are giving him a pass. Perhaps, it's that there are two or three films that discuss racism and sexism in the film and reviewers are calling it socially important. 

Modern Family's Affluence Problem

When "Modern Family" premiered 11 years ago, it offered a "modern" take on the typical American family: a May-December marriage, two mixed-race families, characters with disabilities (Luke), and characters on the LGBT spectrum. But for all its attention to align with the "modern" family today, "Modern Family" differs from the typical American family because the Pritchett-Dunphy-Delgado-Tucker clan's amount of disposable income isn't so average.

Consider that:
1) The family has taken vacations to Hawaii, Italy  and Australia in between spontaneous trips to Vegas, dude ranches, Florida and the Pacific Northwest

2) Gadget enthusiast Phil tends to buy whatever home improvement devices or toys he wants without a second thought

3) When Jay and Gloria have an accidental pregnancy, they don't consider the economic costs of it because it's presumably something Jay can handle
4) There are few discussions about out-of-state verse in-state college costs with Claire and Phil's kids. The logistical need to keep the show's child actors as main cast members rather than recurring cast members, but the decisions of the children to return home throughout college range from being expelled to not getting into college to getting homesick.
5) Characters like Cameron, Mitchell, and Claire have quit or drifted out of jobs to follow their bliss without considering economic consequences. Granted, they might have nest eggs or savings but these economic considerations aren't necessarily alluded to.

The disconnect between "Modern Family" and its audience on the wealth issue marks a desire to embody both sides of a TV contradiction that has gone on since the beginning of the family sitcom: 1) The need to be both aspirational (to show an upward version of the American family) that TV advertisers prefer and that is alluring to viewers and 2) the need to mirror the American family viewing at home. 

As a result, many shows like I Love Lucy, the Cosby Show, the Brady Bunch and Friends have had disparities between how the characters well off the characters should be verse what we're seeing on screen. So which TV shows have been the biggest sinners?  

The very first shows to attract a following in the late 40s and early 50s were actually focusing on the ethnic and poor. Shows like "Life with Luigi" (Italian-Americans), "Mama" (the Swedish community), "The Goldbergs" (the Jewish community) and "Amos n Andy" (the black community) documented ethnic or racial communities in America and highlighted their struggles (my friend Christine Becker has a useful link). Part of this was that some of these were holdovers from radio and part of this was inertia. 

The biggest show of that decade, "The Honeymooners" , followed in that template and so did "I Love Lucy" but the latter had a flaw: Ricky was somewhat of a B-list celebrity in-universe who casually knew Bob Hope and John Wayne, yet Lucy still had to manage a tight budget in a small apartment with no domestic help. 

When sitcoms focused on the WASP clans like "Leave it to Beaver" and later "Brady Bunch" they generally tilted towards the high life. In the former, the patriarch of the clan belonged to a country club and had his own secretary, and in the latter, the family had their own maid. A factor that was starting to play with TV sitcoms more than other genres is that the family sitcom directly reflected families at home so advertising wanted the shows to depict more inspirational pictures. The "George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" was sponsored by Carnation Milk and they went so far as to constantly remind the audience (with the subtlety of a mallet) in character of how they were having a great time enjoying Carnation Milk.

In the 1970s, social justice started to seep into the picture with "Good Times", "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons" which resonated with an audience that was interested in seeing socio-economically imperfect families. The Jeffersons' theme song "Moving on Up" depicted upward mobility but the show also asked whether they belonged there and explored that class tension. More modern  examples that explore that race and class tension might include "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Black-ish"

In the past twenty years, both formulas have largely worked with a different distinguishing factor of sorts. Family sitcoms generally have become endangered in such a competitive environment for eyeballs. The ones that have evolved are the ones with with strong voices.  In shows like "Raising Hope", "Everybody Hates Chris", and "The Middle", firm choices are made over what kind of universe the characters want to inhabit. 

"Modern Family" largely falls into this category too but because it's not really accounting for its characters wealth and financial privilege, there's something on-the-fence about it's approach to the issue. 

As for whether the show is the biggest sinner?
I would argue yes, because this show 1) exists in a more realistic era of TV or one and  2) This show has run in an era where we have a heightened concern about economic security. It debuted in 2009 at the advent of the housing bubble and restructurings of the economy in this decade have all been things Americans are more conscious of.  

Thanks to Sheri Ciscell for the research assistance

The best TV show ever

This was originally posted on September 30th

I watched the Office tonight and was kind of weary to do so, because I didn’t want to mess with a good thing, but it was actually pretty good tonight. There was a really touching moment where Jim called Michael a friend. I also didn’t even catch the season premiere. And I just watched a two minute clip of the season premiere, and now i'm inclined to download itunes just to get the season premiere. The last season of the Office was like the best season of any TV show in TV history. From the season’s first episode where Pam saved Michael from an akward moment at the annual Dundie Awards, the show went such a long way since last season towards bringing everyone to life, and keeping Michael hilariously akward but still endearing. I looked forward to Thursday nights last year for The Office and asked to be dropped off from ski practice at my apartment early to catch the show because it was just such a great show and uplifting experience, and hey, it’s 5 dollars cheaper than Highlawn (the local club which has college night on Thursday nights). And the season finale did something that few shows could do. It resolved the long-standing sexual tension between Michael and Pam without making it seem corny or anticlimactic, and if you have anything invested in its characters (secret to a good comedy: make the audience care about the characters) than you absolutely had to tune into the season premiere. I don’t know if this is the best show ever made, but I think that was one of the best seasons of any TV show ever.

It’s funny because every few years someone proclaims a TV show to be the best thing ever. People have said that about Arrested Development (which actually was the best show ever made), The Sopranos, Sienfeld, the Simpsons, etc. I remember that annoying sports show Around the Horn, where people get points for disagreeing with each other even if it violates common sense (it gets tricky in the first round where you have to simultaneously disagree with 3 people), they were debating what was the best show ever made: The Simpsons or Sienfeld. First of all, Simpsons shouldn’t even be in the debate. Just because a show has been on the air for 20 years, doesn’t mean it’s been producing anything remotely original material for 20 years. And does anyone remember how little the Fox network had to offer 20 or even 10 years ago? It wasn’t particularly hard to survive on the Fox network 20 years ago when the next best shows were Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, In Living Color and Married with Children. The Simpsons might be something good to watch at 6 p.m. if you’re not in the mood to watch the news, but the best ever is overstating it. Like movies, I’m sure that TV’s only good shows aren’t limited to the last 10-15 years. I think Cheers is really great. I thought that was better than Sienfeld. I really like the Beverly Hillbillies. It’s pretty much the same plot over and over again: stick 4 hicks in a Beverly Hillbillies and watch cultural disaster ensue, and each time, it’s hillarious. I think the 4 actors were really good, that was part of it. And I’m not even going that far back, we haven’t even covered the ‘50s or ‘60s with I Love Lucy and stuff like that but my point, though, is that most people just have short-term memory and make bodacious claims about shows like Sienfeld and Simpsons without an appreciation of or knowledge of more than the last 15 years.