Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”
This guest post by Artemis Linhart appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.
You can hear her presence from a distance. If it isn’t the laugh that tips you off, it might just be her nasal, loud voice – the stuff that Chandler’s nightmares are made of. As a viewer, you can also feel her presence from a distance. Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”
This holds true for all 10 seasons of Friends. Just when you thought she was out… they pull her back in.
The thing about Janice though, is that she is more than a running gag. What is established early on in the first season as the on-again, off-again love interest and general catchphrase provider, the inescapable fate of Chandler Bing’s love life, is in fact a statement about our – the fans’ – loyalty and commitment to the characters of the show.
Clearly, it’s a Love Hate Thing. The character evokes in the viewer split feelings of sympathy with both Chandler and Janice herself.
Why We Love Janice
She’s fun.
She may be whiny, but Janice is up for all sorts of fun stuff. Spending a day with her seems like a great thing to do – even though “Joey and Janice’s Day Of Fun” did nothing to change Joey’s feelings about her. Phoebe may be the only one to genuinely like her, but Janice truly cares about all six of the Friends and shows that she’s a fun person to be around.
She’s confident.
Not only is Janice confident when it comes to her style – she pulls off bold fashion choices with ease and, while others might be amused by her outfits, she wears them with pride – but she also never fails to show how strong a person she is. Janice knows what she wants and is not afraid to go ahead and get it.
When she hears about Joey hating her, instead of being offended or shamed, she confronts him and wants to make things right.
She has a good heart.
Janice is loyal to Chandler despite all the pain he has caused her. She truly cares about him. Remember the customized candy hearts and the Bullwinkle socks she gave him for Valentine’s Day? Those were gifts that really showed how thoughtful she is.
Forget lobsters! – Janice is the Bullwinkle sock to Chandler’s pair of Rockys. She might get lost in the sock drawer at times, but she’s sure to resurface every once in a while for Chandler to mix and match.
She’s supportive.
When Chandler pretend-moved to Yemen, she helped pack, bring his luggage to the airport and, on top of it all, agreed to a long-distance relationship.
At one point, she did actually make Chandler happy.
And we love a happy Chandler.
It is always fun to see Chandler’s pitiful tries to break up with her.
New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, you name it. Chandler may be the worst breaker-upper there ever was.
Why We Love to Hate Janice
We feel the pain.
Empathy, folks. We’ve got it.
It’s not just Chandler who suffers.
Joey, Rachel and Ross also get their fair share of Janice-induced agony.
We are protective of Monica and Chandler’s romance.
For Monica, there might even be a hint of jealousy involved. After all, Mon/Chan is the One True Pairing.
The humor isn’t meant to put down white folks, but rather poke fun at the very real actions of white guys who attempt to adopt Black culture simply because it’s “cool.” This sort of behavior has existed in “white sitcoms” for nearly a century (making the Back character the “token” of the show) and it seems the only reason ‘Smart Guy’ comes under fire is because white critics are now seeing the characters they identify with in positions that aren’t of power or virtue.
This guest post by BJ Colangelo appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.
As a proud child of the 1990s, I was lucky enough to grow up with some of the best sitcoms on television. Perhaps my nostalgic love of these shows have clouded my view on whether or not these shows were any good, but I still stomp my curmudgeonly feet around and shout, “These kids today don’t know good TV!” I grew up in a lower-middle class family in an extremely diverse community, so I’ve always been exposed to multi-cultural families. Hell, my mom named my (white, red-headed) sister after a guest-starring character she loved on Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper. Disney Channel used to show re-runs of a lot of shows I loved growing up, and I distinctly remember running home off the bus to make sure I wouldn’t miss the “newest” episode of Smart Guy.
I. Loved. Smart. Guy. Growing up, I was a gifted child, so T.J. Henderson was a boy after my own heart. He was living the life I always dreamed of having. I probably wasn’t high school smart at 10 years old the way he was, but all I could think about was how awesome it would be to outsmart all of the older kids that picked on me for being so little. T.J. had a super-hip older sister named Yvette who was a staunch feminist and loved the fine arts. I saw a lot of myself in Yvette, even at a young age. T.J.’s older brother Marcus was the big man on campus, and I idolized how cool he was. The patriarch of the family was Floyd Henderson, the most caring father on TV (next to Danny Tanner of Full House), but was way, way cooler than Danny Tanner could ever hope to be.
One of the biggest criticsms people seem to give Smart Guy, is that it’s “racist” against white people. First of all, “reverse racism” doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to even go into that argument. However, critics tend to site Marcus and Mo’s (Marcus’ best friend) white pal Mackey to be one of the major reasons the show is “racist.” Mackey is one of the few major white characters, and he’s a giant doofus. He consistently tries to “fit in” with Marcus and Mo, usually to no avail, and had a tendency to respond to his failures with, “It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?” The entire cast would nod their head in agreement and the canned laughter would play. Smart Guy isn’t racist, but it wasn’t afraid to race-bend a “token” character usually reserved for a Black man on a sitcom, and instead attach the attributes to a white character. The humor isn’t meant to put down white folks, but rather poke fun at the very real actions of white guys who attempt to adopt Black culture simply because it’s “cool.” This sort of behavior has existed in “white sitcoms” for nearly a century (making the Back character the “token” of the show) and it seems the only reason Smart Guy comes under fire is because white critics are now seeing the characters they identify with in positions that aren’t of power or virtue.
Smart Guy definitely fell into the “Huxtable Effect” of making Black families palatable for white audiences at times, but it was never afraid to point out the indifferences and injustices Black families face on a day to day basis compared to white folks. It was a safe and “beginner’s guide to systematic racism” for white audiences. For example, in the episode “Working Guy,” T.J. gets a job working on (at the time) a brand new product called a DVD. As expected, Marcus is invading T.J.’s new gig and T.J. is left to explain to his coworker (an old white guy) to ignore Marcus, because he’s just T.J.’s brother.
“Oh, I get it – it’s a Black thing,” the guy exclaims. He raises his fist. “Righteous!”
“No, he’s my actual brother,” T.J. explains. “Same house, same parents… similar genetic coding.”
This is a common situation of a white person trying to relate to a Black person with limited knowledge of their culture, as well as the ever-popular trope of an older person trying to interact (and failing) with a younger member of society. However, Smart Guy’s influence is something far more important than allowing black families to be seen as something other than token.
Unlike many sitcoms, Smart Guy focused on a single-parent household. In particular, Smart Guy focused on a household headed by a single, Black father. For the last two decades, the media has tried to paint Black fathers as absent, neglectful, and violent. Smart Guy showed a Black father not only successfully raising three children on his own, but also managing to keep the needs of his wildly different children in check. We all know the importance of representation, but the fact Smart Guy was picked up by The Disney Channel after its WB cancellation is absolutely vital to its existence. This means that Smart Guy was thrown onto one of the most popular and wildly accessed channels for children at the peak of its popularity. The people who grew up watching Smart Guy on their televisions as children are the same people who are now of voting age.
Smart Guy was also a little bit ballsier compared to shows like The Cosby Show. T.J. was a child of the new millennium, and the show wasn’t afraid to explore things like internet predators, systematic racism (like shoplifting accusations), and pre-teen sexual awakenings. At only 51 episodes, Smart Guy covered more topical situations than just about every other show on television at the time.
The ever popular statement of “racism isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you’re taught” rings especially true for the audiences that grew up watching Smart Guy. By allowing children to see a Black family as something other than what Fox News wants to make them out to be, it gives children a starting point to develop their own beliefs and understanding of families that may look a little different from their own.
BJ Colangelois the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.
Gareth does not “happen to be Black”; the pressure on him to conform to white culture, to avoid limiting his own narrative, mirrors the show’s own need to conform to that culture, to avoid limiting its audience. This conflict is slyly embodied in plausibly deniable food metaphor.
Janice and Gareth’s stressful ideal
Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on Black Families.
If I had to point to one screen marriage that shaped my childhood ideas about marriage’s potential as positive partnership and intense intimacy, it would be Janice and Gareth Blackstock on the first two seasons of the British sitcom Chef!. The original writer, Peter Tilbury (working from star Lenny Henry’s concept), left after two seasons, and the final season’s crude divorce drama only highlights what made Tilbury’s vision so brilliant. In the final season, Janice is not a fully rounded partner, but an obstacle and challenge for Gareth. Where her constructive criticism was a form of protective support, it is now scornful nagging and abandonment. Her desire for a child is now her main motivation and source of conflict with Gareth. The third season’s Janice is the irritating, castrating and baby-crazy screen wife that viewers have seen a thousand times before; the contrast illustrates everything that was subtle and human about Janice’s original characterization.
From a racial perspective, Chef! might be compared to The Cosby Show, as portraying an exceptionally talented, sophisticated, and wealthy Black family. But where the Huxtables effortlessly “have it all,” somehow combining two careers and a large family with inhumanly minimal friction, the Blackstocks acknowledge that their lifestyle demands real sacrifice. Janice had to leave a flourishing career in the city to accompany Gareth, after his promotion to head chef of a prestigious, rural restaurant; she is outspokenly frustrated and eager to work again. When the restaurant has financial problems, the couple must sacrifice their house and car to buy it, admitting that the resulting tension “feels like you’ve eaten a lorry-load of All-Bran.” They are childless, and the conflict between their workaholic careerism and their hopes for children is openly explored. Each has a defensive facade of toughness and hyper-competence, but their scenes together explore the toll that this facade takes and the vulnerability it conceals. The sitcom’s central comedy is the farcical exaggeration of Gareth’s intimidating facade – “totally driven. We’re talking severe personality disorder here” – and its contrast with his inner softness. The perfection of Janice and Gareth’s marriage is not based on a perfection of their lives or personalities, but on their shared concept of marriage as a space of solidarity that accepts flaws and conflict.
That model of acceptant marriage is the bedrock of the show. In the opening credits, the lyrics “I’m the best, so do not test, the top of my profession” play over a montage of Gareth’s hyper-competence – working out and preparing the immaculate tools of his culinary trade – broken only when he briefly strokes the glossy picture of Janice that hangs in his locker, as though for reassurance. This image of her face comes before Gareth’s own face, underlining her importance to the show. Janice’s character can be read as rewriting the Sapphire stereotype, exploring the loving foundations of constructive criticism and the emotional intimacy of openly expressed frustration. Gareth’s farcical posturing can equally be read as parodying hypermasculine models of Black manhood, as much as bad-tempered celebrity chefs, while his sensitivity and capacity for nurture is his character’s true strength. The show’s unusually erotic portrait of monogamous marriage compares with the marital eroticism of Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love” which, along with the self-identified feminist’s proud adoption of Mrs. Carter as a title, radically rejects stereotypes of absent fathers in the Black community. John Legend’s “All of Me” video showcases similar aesthetics of marital eroticism, while that song’s description of loving “perfect imperfections” is a good summary of Janice and Gareth’s relationship. But reducing their relationship to a cultural trend of Black marital eroticism would be far too limiting: it is, quite simply, television’s most perfectly imperfect marriage.
Living the rustic, bourgeois dream
As well as the strain of hyper-competence, Chef! confronts the cultural tensions in narratives of Black exceptionalism, mainly through Everton, Gareth’s never-really-liked-you-anyway-probably-flush-your-head-down-the-toilet-as-soon-as-look-at-you old schoolmate, who shares Gareth’s working class, British Caribbean background. Though Janice and Gareth help Everton, by offering him an unpaid apprenticeship in Gareth’s kitchen, it is clear that this is owing to the restaurant’s desperate finances, with Gareth particularly reluctant to take Everton on. On the surface, Everton fills the familiar role of goofy sidekick. Actually, although his unfamiliarity with restaurant etiquette causes some farce, he is capable and acquires skills steadily as the series progresses. The comical embarrassment that Everton causes Gareth is less a reflection of his foolishness than of his culture.
Gareth squirms at Everton’s pride in Caribbean cooking, having fully internalized cultural messages about the superior prestige of French haute cuisine and frequently boasting of his two Michelin stars. He automatically assumes that Everton is a “dope-head” (the marijuana belongs to a white co-worker) and fiercely attacks him for it, separating himself from that cultural stereotype with a barked “I hate dope-heads!” Gareth’s intense rejection of his own culture is rooted in personal conflict with his parents. Again, this tension is expressed in culinary terms: his mother’s neglect is illustrated by her incompetence as a chef, or perhaps by Gareth’s bitterness over that incompetence, while his father abandons the family for a short-order cook. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, young Gareth answered “an orphan.” Janice becomes insecure when Gareth shows admiration for the cooking skills of pretty, blonde sous-chef Lucinda, though he is otherwise “Mr. Monogamy.” Dominant stereotypes of Black life – absent fathers, neglectful mothers and attraction to blondes – are all slyly embodied by the show’s cooking metaphors, giving complicated symbolic resonance to Gareth’s determination to master society’s most prestigious cuisine.
Gareth’s broadly accented Caribbean father is introduced in the first season’s “Rice and Peas” finale, goading Gareth into trying to cook Caribbean food. The master chef is humbled by being forced to learn from Everton, highlighting his detachment from his roots, while Everton reveals a genius for Caribbean cookery that rivals Gareth’s own skill at haute cuisine. By the end of the second season, Everton has become a confident chef who combines Caribbean influences and haute cuisine, unapologetically owning his cultural identity but refusing to be limited by it. However, this is only made possible by the opportunity the Blackstocks have given him; their strained and self-conscious hyper-competence is a necessary first step to wider cultural change. Through Gareth’s complex relationship with Everton, Chef! foregrounds the tensions of so-called “choc ice” (British for “oreo”) cultural positions, without simplistically condemning them. The show’s Wikipedia entry commends Chef! as “a landmark programme in the sense that Henry plays a character who just happens to be black; the fact of his blackness does not limit the narrative or the audience the series reaches.” This misses the point. Gareth does not “happen to be Black”; the pressure on him to conform to white culture, to avoid limiting his own narrative, mirrors the show’s own need to conform to that culture, to avoid limiting its audience. This conflict is slyly embodied in plausibly deniable food metaphor.
Janice Blackstock: wet, snotty bawler
Back to Janice. Janice is all kinds of awesome as a character. A brilliant businesswoman, she is practical in all the ways the flamboyant artist, Gareth, is not, but shares his preoccupation with status. Janice is hilariously open about her materialism, yet prepared to sacrifice everything for Gareth if absolutely, absolutely necessary. Both Janice and Gareth are self-conscious social performers, but the basis of their relationship is their shared recognition of that performance’s artificiality, by no more than a quirk of a smile or a raised eyebrow. Their affinity, beautifully shown in their common flaws as much as in their virtues, creates the deep understanding between them. Janice is strong, but this doesn’t prevent her from admitting weakness: “I’m going to be brave in a minute. But, just right now, I’m going to break down completely, OK? I don’t mean a dignified tear or a trembling lip, I’m talking wet, snotty bawling!” With a sharp-tongued wit of her own, Janice may often play the foil to Gareth’s shrieking manbaby, but she is allowed to be his equal in comedy as well as in business. Gareth is also allowed to be Janice’s equal in emotional vulnerability: “I’m not going to cry because I’m a big boy now, but if I wasn’t, or if I was a ‘New Man,’ we could be talking wet, snotty bawling here.”
The Blackstocks’ relationship is physically intimate; Janice’s frustration is a running gag as Gareth’s workload leaves him too tired for sex, but the couple’s sex life remains “well above average.” Indeed, jokes about Janice’s sexual frustration only highlight how much more sex she’s depicted getting than other sitcom wives. It is less spectacular intimacies, however, that make the relationship convincing: Lenny Henry and Caroline Lee Johnson capture the subtleties of body language that convey affection and mutual reassurance in long-term relationships. Secure in this foundation of bodily affection, the Blackstocks are free to argue and vent their frustrations openly. Much of their relationship’s conflict springs from Janice’s sense of being neglected by her workaholic husband; that is, it is fundamentally rooted in the pair’s deep love for each other. When the final season’s (male) writers attempted to create drama by escalating the couple’s rows into full-blown separation, they could do so only at the expense of Janice’s character, flattening her into unsympathetic coldness. While this season shows how important Janice is to Gareth, through his devastation when she leaves and his desperation to win her back, that demonstration was unnecessary. Chef! wasn’t another clichéd show about a man who doesn’t appreciate what he has until it’s gone. The co-dependence of Janice and Gareth was fundamental to all their interactions.
Such co-dependence may be criticized. Janice would struggle to pass a Bechdel test, as she relates so exclusively to Gareth, though I see this as reflecting her rural isolation and the sacrifices she has made for Gareth’s career. Janice regularly complains about her loneliness, career frustrations and feelings of neglect; the insufficiency of a life that revolves only around her husband is core to her role. Such a portrait, of female frustration with the confines of a dependent role, can be as valuable as portraits of ideal female solidarity and independence. Janice needs a sense of vocation, which she gains by managing Gareth’s restaurant. Janice also needs friends and interests beyond her husband, which is explicitly addressed in the Tilbury-scripted episode Private Lives. In the finale of Chef!, Gareth’s underlying issues, his cultural identity crisis, and neglect of his private life, are tackled as he must sacrifice a trip to Paris to fly instead to Jamaica with Janice and work on their relationship. But the (so very male) writers of the final season are mistaken to interpret Janice’s relationship as the source of her frustrations. It is Janice’s life that is constricting, as she shares Gareth’s conflict between her materialist ambition and her emotional needs. But her marriage is a model of mutual support and open communication.
This is classic “patriarchy hurts men, too”: if a woman is understood only in relation to men, this means her male partner must be unfairly burdened with sole responsibility for her entire psychological well-being. The fact that the (oh so painfully male) writers could see no solution to Janice’s problems but a choice between divorce or more sex, with a romantic holiday to Jamaica thrown in, points to deeper problems in our concept of relationships and female roles. A chance for Gareth and Janice to grow as individuals, within the supportive framework of a relationship that needed no repair, would have been the more perfect ending for this perfectly imperfect marriage.
Janice and Gareth: they’re the best, so do not test.
Brigit McCone has unrealistically gendered catering expectations, since her father was the chef at home. She writes short films, radio dramas and “The Erotic Adventures of Vivica” (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and she now lives off baked potatoes.
While ‘Broad City’ is about girls, it isn’t “About Girls.” It’s not a show that makes it its mission to make statements about modern young womanhood, it’s a show that makes it its mission to be funny as all fuck and depict an incredibly sweet friendship between two well-drawn female characters. And that’s just as important.
This guest post by Solomon Wong previously appeared at Be Young & Shut Up and is cross-posted with permission.
Comedy Central’sBroad City, created by Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, is a show about underpaid 20-something white girls in New York. Kinda like Girls, only Broad City doesn’t give me that rather unpleasant feeling of existential dread that would be probably five times worse if I were a woman. I’ll be honest, that dread kept me from watching past the first episode of Girls, so I don’t have an informed opinion on it. What I will say is that whatever Girls’ place and importance in the TV landscape, Broad City matches in value and exceeds in entertainment. While Broad City is about girls, it isn’t “About Girls.” It’s not a show that makes it its mission to make statements about modern young womanhood, it’s a show that makes it its mission to be funny as all fuck and depict an incredibly sweet friendship between two well-drawn female characters. And that’s just as important.
A while ago, we reviewed Michael J. Fox’s sitcom,The Michael J. Fox Show, and came to the conclusion that while the show was boring, hackneyed, every word for generic and un-creative, its value was in showing it could be done. A cookie-cutter family sitcom where the main character has Parkinson’s. Broad City, on the other hand, is excellent, but similarly, in a field women typically don’t stand in—the genre of slacker/gross-out comedy.
Representation is the big media issue of the past couple years. Women have less than 45 percent of speaking parts in prime time TV, and less than 30 percent of speaking roles in film. Some parts rise to the top—we can all name phenomenal woman characters in television. But it’s rare that a show, particularly a comedy, focused on women gets to be so goofy and small. A friend watched one of the original webisodes (the show is derived from a YouTube series) and read the comment “Who would want to watch a show about girls walking around and talking about nothing?” Well, like, a lot of people. Walking around and talking about nothing is generally reserved for male-dominated casts, and while that’s a combination of words designed to be unattractive, it describes a coveted set-up where the interest comes solely from the characters being themselves. With no gimmicks and no real premise, Broad City draws from its central friendship between Ilana and Abbi to be an intensely character-based show. And let’s be real, they do more than just walk around.
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That said, one of the show’s biggest strengths is its willingness to be petty. These characters have small lives, and pathetic problems. Abbi has a meltdown over her roommate’s live-in boyfriend recycling her big stack of expired Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons (they don’t actually expire!). There’s a whole episode about Abbi trying to buy weed and Ilana struggling with her taxes. In an episode that takes place during a hurricane, the biggest conflict is that Abbi’s toilet won’t flush after she takes a dump with company over. The pilot is about Ilana convincing Abbi that they have to scrounge up $200 to buy tickets and weed for a Lil Wayne show. Nobody is trying to get or keep a job, the stakes are low, but the characters lead themselves on an adventure anyway, “returning” stolen office supplies to Staples and cleaning an adult baby’s apartment in their underwear.
Small problems, but the kind everyone has. What do people in their 20s worry about? Getting drugs, seeing Lil Wayne, having sex, struggling to come up with the motivation to do anything worthwhile. We all have gross, stupid lives, sometimes. The dialogue is often pointless, but it’s the kind of relatable pointless conversation you and your friends take pleasure in. This show, despite the zany heights its plots reach, is authentic and genuine. Ilana is the kind of pseudo-political millennial we all love to hate, taking issue with Staples playing “What a Wonderful World” because “it’s a slave song, look it up,” and referring to her supervisor as “Mr. George Bush.” At one point, Abbi tells her “Sometimes, you’re so anti-racist, you’re actually…really racist.”
Broad City carries with it the themes of decline and aimlessness and disenfranchisement that a more serious and self-important show might, but they’re part of the fabric of this show, not the focus. Abbi folds towels and cleans pubes out of gym shower drains for a living. Ilana gets high at her telemarketing job. One episode opens with the two strutting into a bank to Drake’s “Started From the Bottom” as Abbi deposits an $8,000 check. At a fancy seafood prix-fixe, Ilana eats as much as possible, despite a serious shellfish allergy. At one point, they call in a locksmith to help them into Ilana’s apartment, but he’s so gross and creepy that Ilana gives a fake name and ends up having him get them into her neighbor’s apartment instead. In a montage of their morning routines, Abbi sits next to an old man reading the same book as her. He takes this as a sign and tries to kiss her, and flips her off angrily when she rebuffs him. These themes aren’t often directly explored, but they’re always there in the background and driving the characters.
At the end of the day, Broad City is just a goddamn delight. Abbi and Ilana have an adorable friendship, and the supporting characters are hilarious, especially Ilana’s fuck buddy Lincoln, a dentist played by Hannibal Burress. It’s confidently pointless and gross, willing to show its protagonists at their worst and most brandy-sick, most unmotivated and selfish. With shades of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Workaholics, Broad City carries on their tradition of ludicrous character-based catastrophe from a perspective that until now has been excluded from the genre.
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Broad City has been renewed for a second season. Check this show out, please.
Solomon Wong is a writer and a graduate of UC Santa Cruz. He is the co-editor of Be Young and Shut Up, author of the cyberpunk serial novel Stargazer. He likes cooking, fishkeeping, and biking around Oakland.
It’s no coincidence that ‘Mom’ drew the ire of One Million Moms, a conservative media watchdog group that seeks to eliminate immorality and vulgarity (their words) in entertainment. In an undated post titled “CBS Makes ‘Mom’ Look Bad,” the group called for moms to protest ‘Mom,’ pointing specifically to the show’s portrayal of mothering: “If possible, try to imagine the worst possible characteristics a mother could have. Then multiply that by ten….” The post listed numerous examples of what was deemed “unacceptable content” on ‘Mom,’ but I think it’s the show’s deliberate challenge to the new momism that really ticked off One Million Moms.
Mom features two strong female leads played by Anna Faris and Allison Janney
This is a guest post by Jessamyn Neuhaus.
I’m a feminist and I’ve loved television all my life. Now TV has finally started to love me back with some of the most interesting and intelligent female lead characters ever seen in any entertainment medium. But there’s still lots to loathe, with gold-digging hussies, hysterical bridezillas, and helpmeet housewives aplenty on TV.
So when a show—particularly a show on one of the elderly big three networks—gives us something better, we should pay attention. Mom, the latest sitcom spearheaded by longtime TV writer and producer Chuck Lorre, is something better. Featuring two strong female leads, this CBS show about Kristy (Anna Faris), a recently sober single mother of two who is rebuilding a relationship with her own negligent mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), is not a flawless feminist text. But for those of us who believe mainstream popular culture can be a place for both reinforcing and challenging gender stereotypes, there are at least three reasons to be watching when the second season of Mom begins on Oct. 30.
1. Allison Janney is perfect.
Lorre has an uneven record when it comes to his female characters. Roseanne and Grace Under Fire were high points, and I think we can all agree that Two and a Half Men is the lowest of the low points. Even Lorre’s best shows are characterized by an unabashed mainstream commercialism, so it’s not surprising that some aspects Mom are cookie-cutter mediocre sitcom.
For instance, TV’s version of “working class” is frequently cringeworthy and Mom is no exception. Lorre has gotten props for his blue collar characters, but on Mom, a single waitress (admittedly, at an upscale restaurant) with two children and sober for only six months can afford to rent a three-bedroom home in a safe neighborhood and provide her family with smart phones, laptops, video games, and Anthropologie bed linens. Sitcoms don’t set out to be “realistic” of course, but it’s jarring to see the supposedly broke family enjoying luxury consumer goods. Kristy also sports a haircut and color that costs more per month than many viewers’ rent or mortgage payments.
A working class single mother of two could never afford these bed linens. Just sayin.’
In addition, many of the men on Mom are rather shallowly drawn male caricatures, from the loveable high school stoner who impregnates Kristy’s daughter Violet, to the loveable stoner ex-husband who impregnated Kristy years ago, to the whiny married-to-a-battle-ax boss with whom Kristy has a brief affair.
Then there’s the widely panned laugh track. At this point, a laugh track (even if it’s ostensibly recorded live audience laughter) is more than outdated. It undermines the show’s comedic impact.
And finally: the fat suit Farris donned in “Sonograms and Tube Tops.” It’s offensive, and it’s also just not funny. Really. Not. Funny.
Mom’s not perfect. But Allison Janney is.
Not to say that Faris isn’t good too. She has excellent comedy timing and physicality, and also handles some of the more serious moments in the show well, giving Kristy emotional depth within the limitations of a comedy-tackling-serious-subjects-with-a-light-touch framework. Farris has often deftly undercut the typecasting trap of being a cute petite blonde girl, and she does so on Mom.
But Faris’ solid skills are outshone in every scene with Janney, whose crackling delivery and unique physical presence exude…well, the only word is power. Power that is remarkable to see so confidently exercised by a female character on a traditional sitcom. Bonnie has a lot of past problems (teenage pregnancy, drug dealing) and current flaws (tenuously sober, intermittently employed, and highly self-absorbed). She’s making some amends to Kristy now, but she wastes no time on pointless guilt or doubt. Bonnie is always beautifully self-assured. It’s a real pleasure to see, on a traditional sitcom, a strikingly tall, handsome (not “pretty”), deep-voiced woman OVER 50 YEARS OLD strut her stuff without being made into a buffoon or an object of pity.
2. Female sexuality and reproduction are multifaceted and messy.
When the pilot ended with Kristy’s discovering that Violet might be pregnant, I almost gave up on Mom. Another TV teenage pregnancy, because that’s the most interesting thing that can happen to a high school girl, and naturally she’ll never consider an abortion because abortions don’t exist in TV Land? No thanks. But as the season continued, I was won over by some of the nuances and complexities of female sexuality and reproduction on Mom, including Violet’s pregnancy.
Although sitcomish in many ways, the pregnancy story depicted Violet truly struggling to decide whether to raise the baby herself or give it up for adoption. Violet changes her mind several times, up to and throughout her labor and delivery in the season finale. It was an emotionally difficult process, which included choosing potential adoptive parents and convincing her boyfriend it’s the right decision on “Clumsy Monkeys and Tilted Uterus,” and a tearful but determined goodbye to the baby after the birth. Meanwhile, Bonnie and Kristy support Violet’s decision but also experience it as a deep loss—though the emotional toll doesn’t stop Kristy from picking up her camera phone during Violet’s labor to “make a video for you to watch the next time you think about having unprotected sex.”
Kristy encourages Violet to use birth control in the future.
The National Council for Adoption praised the story line, and it was a refreshing change from the standard flippant sitcom treatment of birth mothers and adoption. (Ironically, one of the most egregious examples of such stories was the 2004 episode of Friends in which a birth mother played by Anna Faris is so nonchalant that she doesn’t even realize that she’s having twins.)
There are other things to applaud about the show’s depictions of sex, which are often humorous without falling into gratuitous references to horniness and/or female genitals (Two Broke Girls, I’m looking at you). The show begins with Kristy’s bad decision to sleep with her married boss but she clearly knows it’s stupid and soon ends it. She tries to make smarter sexual decisions, postponing intercourse with a nice guy in an effort to maintain her sobriety and to explore the long term potential of the relationship. But in “Nietzsche and Beer Run,” she falls immediately into bed and almost-love with a smolderingly hot philosopher/fireman (and who could blame her? What a combo!). This guy has a drinking/drugs/womanizing problem and for most of “Jail Jail and Japanese Porn,” Kristy teeters on the edge of messing up her life big time to be with him, but then snaps out of it and cuts him loose. Kristy also occasionally sleeps with her ex-husband, but with a minimum of drama. In contrast to TV’s tired “woman in her 30s who can’t find a husband or manage her romantic life,” Kristy’s sex life is convincingly messy but never demeaning or disempowering. She’s unashamedly sexual, gladly accepting the gift of a vibrator from Bonnie and joking that the only thing that could possibly cause her to relapse and drink again would be “I have a stroke and forget how to masturbate.” But sex is just one part of her life, and although she’s doing some fumbling, she’s not overwrought or hung up about it.
Bonnie’s healthy sexual appetite is sometimes portrayed as unfortunate promiscuity and sometimes embarrassing for Kristy, but Bonnie is never belittled by the writers for being a sexual person. She’s absolutely, completely confident in her attractiveness and picks up desirable (often younger) men with flawless and humorous ease that never stoops to presenting her as a laughingstock. Though Bonnie frets about the onset of menopause in “Estrogen and a Hearty Breakfast,” most of the time her sexuality is sophisticated and fluid in a way that’s unusual for network TV. In “Corned Beef and Handcuffs,” she smoothly comes out the victor in a kinky standoff with a pervy chef, and in “Leather Cribs and a Medieval Rack” casually reveals that she had a long time relationship with another woman. “You were gay?” gasps Kristy. “Not gay so much as temporarily disgusted with men,” smiles Bonnie. She knows she’s sexy, but more importantly, so do the viewers because the show does not depict Bonnie as a pathetic old cougar.
3. The moms on Mom are not “moms.”
Mom, in its title and in its content, strikes a blow against one of the more insidious aspects of gender ideology today: “the new momism.” Identified by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels in The Mommy Myth, the new momism sets impossibly high ideals and norms for good mothering. Douglas and Meredith argue that one symptom of the new momism is the widespread use of the term “mom” itself. They point out that “Mom” is what kids call mothers and in many ways it can be patronizing and problematic when adults use “mom” to describe women.
Recovering addicts, Bonnie and Kristy both attend AA meetings.
On Mom, the mothers are loving, but not even close to ideal moms. And not in a merely goofy Modern Family kind of way, but in seriously screwed up ways. Both Bonnie and Kristy are trying to reestablish trust with their daughters after years of addiction and neglect. Their AA friend Marjorie (Mimi Kennedy) is estranged from her children due to her past drug and alcohol abuse, and another friend, Regina (the always awesome Octavia Spencer) has to leave her son behind when she goes to jail for embezzlement. These are mothers who have messed up, but they are still trying to do right by their kids.
At times, Mom offers funny yet astute counterpoints to our society’s relentless glorification of mothering. For example, in “Loathing and Tube Socks,” Kristy’s son Roscoe’s run out of clean clothes and in desperation, she stops at a dollar store (a small but noteworthy nod to Kristy’s financial pressures) on the way to school to buy him new underwear. But Roscoe balks because they have anchors on them and “anchors are stupid” and he “likes his underwear to make sense.” “Oh for God’s sake, it’s just a design! It doesn’t mean anything,” she snaps, adding “I am not having this conversation with you.” Then a store employee won’t let Roscoe use the restroom to change. Kristy freaks, whips open a beach towel in front of Roscoe, and orders him to take off his pants and change right there in the aisle. The scene captures the frenzied moments when real-life parenting is absurdly exasperating; when you find yourself acting like a total jackass—arguing about anchor underpants with an eight-year-old, for example—and it’s not funny ha ha, it’s funny because it’s so frustrating and ridiculous that you either laugh or completely lose it.
It’s no coincidence that Mom drew the ire of One Million Moms, a conservative media watchdog group that seeks to eliminate immorality and vulgarity (their words) in entertainment. In an undated post titled “CBS Makes ‘Mom’ Look Bad,” the group called for moms to protest Mom, pointing specifically to the show’s portrayal of mothering: “If possible, try to imagine the worst possible characteristics a mother could have. Then multiply that by ten….” The post listed numerous examples of what was deemed “unacceptable content” on Mom but I think it’s the show’s deliberate challenge to the new momism that really ticked off One Million Moms.
Kristy, Bonnie, and even Violet are not sitcoms’ typical “good moms.” Rather, they are interesting, often complex, women who are definitely worth watching.
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