Another Mash Note for Friday Night Lights

We've already discussed the general awesomeness of the NBC high school football drama Friday Night Lights on this blog in the past. But with the show having completed four seasons now, I figure I would talk a bit more about the general importance of the show, rather than just the actual quality of the writing/acting/directing, which remain quite high all around. And of course, it needs to be said - SPOILER WARNING!

1. The Show Has Done Right By the Characters - A lot of shows deal with high school or college and at a certain point either need to do a full on move to college or rotate characters. Most shows screw it up Saved By The Bell style. There are exceptions, Degrassi have been around forever, but these are rare. FNL hasn't been perfect, Matt Saracen doesn't really get a fair shake with his departure this season, but on the whole characters are dealt with pretty well - Smash gets onto a college team, Street gets an agent job in New York, and Tyra and Lyla both make it out of Dillon as well, even if they don't get a full treatment. Even Riggins is given a relatively nuanced portrait as someone who will never really escape Dillon.

2. Changing the Location - Sure, the shift in the show is just from West Dillon to East Dillon, but between the end of Season 3 when Coach Taylor is booted from the Dillon Panthers through to end of Season 4 when the East Dillon Lions beat the Panthers in the final game of the season, we see the show's original setting effectively abandoned and replaced by a new one. It's just a move across town, but given how incredibly difficult it is to maintain the momentum of a school related show like this, it's handled amazingly well. Buddy's evolution over Season 4 really drives home the difficulty of making such a seemingly minor geographic move as he goes from a Panthers uber-booster to the radio announcer for the Lions.

3. Someone Gets An Abortion! - No matter what your stance on abortion, or your feelings on how heated the arguments get in the show, the point remains - in real life people in America do get abortions. And given the number of movies that have avoided what would happen in reality (Hey, Juno!) it's at least important that FNL provides a nuanced discussion and plotline on teen pregnancy, at least until Luke's mom gets overzealous and everything goes to hell.

Season 5 will be an interesting one, since Landry and Julie both theoretically have to leave. That means all the non-adult characters are gone (and Riggins is in jail). Will the show keep plugging along for another few seasons? Hard to say, but what it's already accomplished in four years is inspiring work for a weekly hour of network television. And it's still way better than Mad Men.

The End of an Affair, or How I Became Disillusioned with My Favorite TV Show

What do Charlie Bartlett, the Lifetime Movie Network, Juno, Jay and Silent Bob, the national tour of Spring Awakening and the musical stylings of Aubrey “Drake” Graham and Cassie Steele have in common?

If you said Degrassi: the Next Generation, then you are correct. If you somehow made some other unrelated connection, then I mean, congratulations.

I am a bit too young to have been a fan of the show the first time around in the 80s, but I have followed the reincarnation with increasing emotional investment since 2000. I own almost every single season since 2000, and I have seen most of those episodes a countless number of times. I know the actors' names and histories, and am suddenly much more interested in whatever media I happen to catch one. I gained a good friend and roommate through Degrassi: upon his first visit to look at our spare room, he casually noticed my six seasons proudly displayed on the mantle and said, "You guys watch Degrassi, too?" and that's all it took. He was in. Because I am, in a word, obsessed.

So it is with relative authority that I feel I can speak on the subject of its demise.

The thing that I love(d) about Degrassi is that, given its cheesiness, its overt drama, its often (but not always) terrible acting, there is always a real, pressing issue rooted in each episode. Degrassi addresses subject matter most television shows with a pre-teen target audience would not touch with a ten-foot pole: drugs, violence, sexuality, abuse, illness, religion, hormones. There are very few clear-cut answers and not every storyline ends happily, though some do (and others are just hilarious.) Regardless, there is always some forbidden door opened, some pandora's box unleashed, allowing viewers to confront, at least in a third party way, some of the most pressing, least talked-about issues that face teenagers today.

Or I suppose I should say there was.

Because the past several seasons of Degrassi, or what one may call the Weird Half Generation Now That Everyone Interesting Has Left the Show, have been crap. Complete and utter crap. One may as well be watching Hannah Montana or The Hills for all the social mores they have tackled. I am not the only die-hard who has noticed this, and it shows in the numbers: from 2002-2004 it was the top-rated Canadian drama for teens and adults in several age ranges covering 13 to 54. In 2006 it was the highest rated digital cable series in the US. Then in 2008, season 7, also known as the last season that meant anything to me, started losing its fanbase. Viewer numbers dropped and kept dropping throughout that season and the following two. (Note: most of my information I get from Wikipedia but you can double check it if you really feel the need.)

The first two episodes of season 7 dealt with date rape, the use of roofies in particular, and they held much potential to spark conversation on a subject so taboo the American television station refused to air it at first. (This is not the first time that station refused to air controversial material; the third season contains several episodes not seen by American audiences until the season was released on DVD, about a fourteen year old who chooses to have an abortion after consensual unprotected sex.)

However, instead of accurately portraying the effects of rufilin to educate and open up the subject to an extremely young, ill-informed demographic, the show's producers (or whoever) chose to go The Hangover route and used the drug as a throw-away plot point. The actress, Shenae Grimes, was lauded for her portrayal of a physically and emotionally wrought young woman trying to keep her terrible secret to herself, which is redeemable, certainly, and does in some way address this awful subject, but it was not at all accurate or educational on the matter of the extremely dangerous (especially so since no one seems to know what its real effects are) drug referenced. Season 7 was also nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Best Drama Series, which is always good. But just not good enough.

Because even by the end of season 7 the plot had become like an absurd mix of Saved by the Bell and Passions. Record label contracts, stem cell research and modeling replaced the plain old everyday unresolved teen drama that made me love this show so much.

Season 7 also saw the end of silly throwaway references to an unseen character I had grown to know and love with the introduction of Holly J, sister of oft-referenced-but-never-actually-seen Heather Sinclair. Heather Sinclair was like the bigfoot of Degrassi, sometimes allowing us a glimpse of her elbow or her nose at the edge of the screen. Once we saw her whole back. More often she was simply mentioned in passing, and never with a positive note. She was just That Girl Everyone Passively Hates; you know the one. And the sly introduction of her inherently evil sister made her a specific character, immediately and permanently ruining all the fun.

The other greatest-thing-about-Degrassi-that-no-one-else-had, besides its accuracy at pinpointing teenage social issues, was its accuracy at portraying the look of real teenagers. The actors were cast within a year or two of their characters' ages, pimples be damned (and largely unmakeuped), and each actor was given a wardrobe that varied and changed with his or her respective character's socioeconomic status and homelife. One of the characters literally wore the same dirty hoodie for three seasons in a row, because that's what kids do. They have acne and don't always know how to deal with their hair and they find one clothing article that they love and they never leave it.

But here we are again in the awful present, and the past two seasons have been full-to-bursting with professional makeup and perfect coifs and designer clothes. It's like suddenly the producers realized it was a popular show, gave it a budget with a capital B, and, oh, fired everyone that ever made it awesome. Or hypnotized them. Or full-on body snatched them, I don't know.

I don't watch The Hills because I don't care about spoiled teenagers with designer nails who are treated like CEOs. Degrassi was great because it was interesting, and ground-breaking, and, despite the sometimes cheesy script, it rang true. I knew these kids because I went to junior high and high school with these kids. They were confused, and rash, and hormonal, and they did stupid things to their hair. They were funny without meaning to be, and, every once in awhile, funny on purpose. They thought they were adults but they very definitely weren't.

Without those true things, those reflective "I get that" moments, Degrassi: the Next Generation is just one more trash program about two-dimensional adolescents clogging up the airways. Degrassi needs to, in the immortal words of GOB Bluth: shape up or ship up. My advice is for the show to take off the polish, go back to its ridiculous-enough roots, STOP GIVING ITS CHARACTERS MODELING CONTRACTS, or just get off the air. For a disgruntled fan I know I've given a lot of time and energy to this show post-heyday, but now I've finally said my piece.

Maybe now I can rest.

So I watched an episode of Glee

And it was pretty enjoyable. Hell, even when the teacher came in and announced "This is Ballads Week," I figured, eh I'll still give it a fair shot. The song choices themselves were mildly amusing, except for an excruciatingly bad version version of "Lean on Me" which was as awful as those holiday Gap commercials (and I reaaaaally don't like those ads).

But Sarah mentioned something midway through the episode that explained a lot about why I rather liked the show - the creator of Glee is the same fellow behind Popular, a very odd and often unexpectedly great show that was on the WB during the height of their teen phase. The joy of Popular was that it was often divorced from reality but could get a bit serious at the moments when it mattered.

Glee has the same sensibility, plus there are the songs, which people seem to enjoy. Both shows are unconcerned with creating this sort of hyper-reality that Dawson's Creek and it's ilk aimed for. Everyone on that program had a graduate degree-sized backstory and was fully formed right from the start. Everyone in Glee, from what I could tell, is pretty one-note, but that's not necessarily a problem. A good writer can get characters out of that cul-de-sac and that seems to be what's happening in the show, at least in spurts.

But will I keep watching it every week? Probably not. For now i'll stick with 30 Rock.

The Wire Post (Spoilers Aplenty)

This will probably be my longest of posts, and I could stretch this into a series of many posts but in deference to Jason and Oz who haven't seen the whole series yet, I figured I'd keep it to one spoiler-tastic post, with a lot of my random thoughts on the series and put in blue so it stands out. And to reiterate, all of this below is SPOILER-filled.

Real Police

One of the biggest discussion points on the white hat side throughout the series is about the idea of "real police." Two archetypes who sit on the far ends of continuum of what is "real police" are Daniels and McNaulty. Daniels is about as close to by the book as you get in the series, and McNaulty, obviously, is not. Daniels is loyal to the chain above all else, but as his quick termination as the commish shows , he absolutely will not juke the stats and play the political game, even if it's what has to be done. He also has something of a naive belief about politics and the words of politicians. He doesn't realize that no matter who is in charge, things are going to stay pretty much the same.

McNaulty's loyalty throughout the series is simply to solving the case in front of him (whether it's actually his case or not is another story). In one of the short flashback vignettes shows that solving someone elses case is how he ended up in homicide to begin with. Only by season 4 does he have the common sense (which only lasts for that season) to bring it a case quietly without pissing off the whole chain above him. The middle distance, and possibly the most "real" of the real police to my mind is Carver. I would suggest that when Daniels gives him the promotion right before stepping down as commissioner, the implication is that some day 15-20 years in the future, Carver will be in charge of the Baltimore police. More than anyone else in the series, Carver seems to navigate through both the hierarchy above him and the street cops below (although he's certainly not perfect on either count). He clearly supports Bunny and the Hampsterdam initiative because he realizes that the current system isn't working. But when things swing back to street rips, he avoids the tarnish that ends Bunny's career and goes right back to arresting hoppers without missing a beat.

The Job

On the street side, the most compelling characters of the series, besides of course the lovable Omar, are Prop Joe and Stringer, whose actions suggest a broader truth in the series -- everyone in the show on every side is trying to do their job as best as possible. Sure, one side's is completely illegal, but that doesn't mean they don't try to do it well. The evolution of the wire taps and phone usage throughout the show emphasizes how the two groups do their damnedest to get the job done and keep evolving along the way. The Wire is so compelling because everyone in the series, even the ultra-evil Clay Davis, has a motivation and pursues it. You can argue the methods but not the dedication.

Ikea

David Simon haaates Ikea. Not one but two detectives are shown over the course of the series piss drunk desperately assembling Ikea furniture. It's one of the best minor comedy moments of the series.

The Kids Get Screwed

Except for Namond, whose unlikely success seems to be a little fuck you to the school system from Simon and Burns, children pretty much have it worst in the show. The other three kids from season 4, especially poor Dukie, have terrible endings, but also in a broader sense, it's terrible to be a kid in Baltimore. Before he's even started his term as mayor, Carcetti has already decided to avoid the schools like a plague and go for issues that will get him the Governorship, even though he has to go begging to the Governor later on for school funding.

Elsewhere Cutty (perhaps the most genuinely good human being in the entire series) is assigned by the school to round up delinquents for just two days of the school year to get the schools funding, an indication of how bureaucracy has trumped the actual learing. And there's poor young Boadie, who has been in the game since he was a kid, and bites it just for listening to McNulty. His life seems to show the course of how the system treats kids.

The Other Side of Drugs

Rather than simply saying "drugs are bad" the series shows Bubbles through the course of the show fighting through drug addiction, and although I think his plot loses a bit of steam in the final season, Steve Earle is one of the finest casting decisions of the series. He's someone who has fought plenty of his own demons in real life.

Is It Better Than West Wing?

In a word yes. I realize that it's not really fair given that West Wing was a network show and The Wire was HBO, but beyond the fun stuff you can only show on cable, The Wire is still simply the best fully contained but expansive form of storytelling ever put on television. No other show has shown all sides of the equation like the Wire. The casting, acting, writing, directing, and even the soundtracking has been spot on throughout. The West Wing shows one side very well, and even though Vidick gets a lot of time during the final campaign, the show is still mainly devoted to the democrats (not that I personally have any problem with that).

A History of Representing

Ozkirbas posted last week his thoughts on the "token" characters in television and film, which, as an actress, is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The truth is, a huge portion of main characters in television and film (especially film) is white, and male. As Ozkirbas pointed out, this could simply be an issue of white, male writers (who make up a large part of the successful screenwriter population) writing what they know. Or white, male producers (another majority) funding projects to which they can relate and connect on a personal level. Or maybe it's habit.

Whatever it is, the general practice is that if characters are generic, they are white men. Females and ethnic minorities almost always have to be specified in the script before they can be cast. For the moment, however, I'm going to leave females alone because at this point in history the public is way too squirmy to consider sex-blind casting an option in most situations.

But minorities. Skin color. Now THAT is something that should not be an issue for generic casting. And I'm going to go ahead and say this before you get your hackles up, I know the world is not as yet color blind and for some things color blind casting is simply not an option. West Side Story, for example.

Which brings up an interesting point. West Side Story, when it first came to Broadway in 1957, cast actual latino actors in the Puerto Rican parts, historically the first Broadway show to put latinos onstage at all, let alone in major roles. When the movie came out in 1961, however, Natalie Wood and others (like George Chakiris, who played Bernardo) were put in brown face for the roles, and then Natalie Wood's singing voice was dubbed over. So I mean, it's not like she was cast for her talent.

What I'm trying to show here is where we're coming from. 1961 was not that long ago, although sometimes it feels that way. Producers and casting agents put onscreen what they think the general paying audience will be comfortable seeing, and that is beaming white faces with their black (or sometimes, but not often, brown) friend. Don't even get me started on where Asian and Native American actors fit in (they don't.)

Which brings us back to Ozkirbas' post. Television has made leaps and bounds in this subject within the last few years. Dexter, The Wire, Heroes (season 1), Degrassi: The Next Generation, Battlestar Gallactica, The Office and The BBC's Dr. Who are all examples of a fairly even playing field of multi-dimensional characters of many ethnicities given about the same amount of air time (equal air time is not actually true of The Office, but they make their own effort at exposing racial stereotyping so I included them.) Television is also the best place to go right now in which female and gay characters can get strong, layered, interesting, less stereotypical roles.

So, film. I'm not even picking on the Oscar nominees because most of the nominees this year were historical and thus more racially motivated. I won't even say anything about the fact that historical does not have to mean white (though it so often does); it was their subject matter to choose and some really great movies came out of it.

But really. All I'm asking is for people to start asking "Why?" and "Why not?" Would you still sing along to Mamma Mia! if Sophie and her mother were black, or latina, or dare I say, Pacific Islander? Would Jack Bauer be as badass if he was Chinese? Why is everyone in WALL-E's future so pasty? Did 700 years really go by with NO integration?

Race onscreen is an issue because it's unconscious, for the most part. It doesn't occur to people that something might be wrong with casting, so it stays the same. As Julia Louis-Dreyfus so perfectly put it as Christine in The New Adventures of Old Christine, "[I like everyone], whether they're black or regular."

So just, you know, keep it in mind.