Fortunately for everyone, the show deliberately plays with archetype. She’s introduced as a singular image we all know, and over the course of the episode is shown to be sexy, amoral, vulnerable (Or is she? This is that kind of show; who knows!?), and an effective, if unorthodox, mentor. She’s a three-dimensional character that happens to fit the description.
Like everyone else on the Internet, I heard about the New York Times review of the first episode of How to Get Away With Murder, wherein the author used the phrase “Angry Black woman” to describe Viola Davis’ character in the show. Shonda Rhimes, show-runner of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, probably didn’t need anyone’s help getting her new project tons of viewers, but the furor certainly got me to check it out. Here’s the short version: I love it. It’s a really fun program, and there’s a good stable of characters that, despite their archetypal presentations, break out and distinguish themselves. Which brings me back to the Times review. While the actual phrasing leaves a lot to be desired, it’s kind of just that—bad phrasing.
“Oh wow, she wrote Crossroads!” – Me, researching Shonda Rhimes
Viola Davis’ attorney/professor character Annalise Keating introduces herself to her new class as pretty much the professor from hell. She’s Professor Snape, if you’re one of the students that isn’t a little snot like Harry Potter. There’s a chance to learn a lot, but you’re going to work really, really hard and she isn’t going to coddle you or be nice (at all) when you screw up.
“I don’t know what terrible things you’ve done in your life up to this point, but clearly your karma’s out of balance to get assigned to my class….”
Speaking of Harry Potter, the protagonist of the show is played by the former actor of Dean Thomas!
If this show were badly written, if all Keating did was be incredibly stern and severe to her students, it would have gotten tons of criticism from the same people criticizing the Times writer, saying that the character is an “Angry Black woman” and nothing more. That’s just the impression you get when she walks in and gives her first-day-of-class spiel. Fortunately for everyone, the show deliberately plays with archetype. She’s introduced as a singular image we all know, and over the course of the episode is shown to be sexy, amoral, vulnerable (Or is she? This is that kind of show; who knows!?), and an effective, if unorthodox, mentor. She’s a three-dimensional character that happens to fit the description.
Which is what the Times review was attempting to say. Black women are in a restricted cultural space, and representations of them are rather pigeonholed. Showing anger, period, is a risk, because it opens up the very real possibility of people labeling and dismissing the character as one of three types they’ve already assigned to black women. So to see the show’s writers rise to the occasion and go with a cold, borderline evil Black female lead is really quite heartening.
This doesn’t change the review’s incredibly bad opening line:
“When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called “How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.””
Wow. Much inadvisable. Phrased in a less eye-jabbing way, it encapsulates what makes How to Get Away With Murder special. This show’s headlining character freely admits to defending guilty clients, and as her students see as they assist with her case, has no qualms about illegal or immoral methods of securing the not-guilty verdict. She sets murderers free because that’s how she’s chosen to make money.
**SPOILER ALERT** This guy gives a network-friendly rimjob to secure case-winning information
There’s a pretty rich tradition of this kind of character; it’s basically all we’ve gotten in the past decade or so of award-winning cable dramas. But like Broad City, How to Get Away With Murder is an entry into an established genre by a group (or two) generally shut out. By circumstance, by the genre’s conventions, or by the fear of falling into a stereotype, Black women don’t play the anti-hero role. Now we’ve got one, and she’s attached to a rip-roarin’-fun show.
I still haven’t gotten to the rest of the characters I like, but how much more do I need to say? Trashy legal drama with sexy law students behaving badly! At the end of the day, I just want everyone to watch this show so we can geek out about it. As for 11-year TV crit veteran Alessandra Stanley, go back…to…writing…school?
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.
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.
