[One of the best
parts of being an AmericanStudier in 2015 is the abundance of impressive
cultural works with which we’re surrounded. So for this year’s Thanksgiving
series, I wanted to give thanks for five great works and artists about which I
haven’t had the chance to write in this space. Share your own cultural thanks
in comments, please!]
On two ways the
Netflix sitcom pushes our cultural boundaries, and one way it happily does not.
The Netflix
original sitcom Grace and Frankie
(2015) features one of the more distinctive and yet appropriately 2015 premises
I’ve seen: two lifelong male friends and law partners come out to their wives
as gay, in love with each other, and leaving their wives for each other and a
planned gay marriage. The premise alone would make the show one of the more
groundbreaking on our cultural landscape, but the fact that the two men are
played by two of our most prominent and respected actors, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, makes
this nuanced, complex, warm, and so so thoroughly human portrayal of a same-sex
relationship even more striking. It seems to me that a greal deal more has been
written about Transparent and Jeffrey Tambor’s portrayal
of that show’s transgender protagonist than about Sheen and Waterston in Grace and Frankie—and without taking
anything away from Tambor’s equally nuanced and impressive performance, I would
argue that seeing Sheen and Waterston in these roles represents an equally
significant step forward in our cultural representations of the spectrums of
sexuality, sexual preference, and identity in America.
What’s particularly
interesting about Grace and Frankie, moreover,
is that Sheen and Waterston’s characters and storyline represents only half of
the show’s primary focuses—and the other half, focused on the responses and
next steps and identities and perspectives of their former wives Grace and
Frankie, is in its own ways just as ground-breaking. Played to comic, tragic,
human perfection by legendary actresses Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin,
these two characters represent to my mind two of the most in-depth and
multi-layered portrayals of older women in television history. That there has
been some behind the scenes controversy about the paychecks of Fonda and
Tomlin in comparison to those of Sheen and Waterston, while of course
frustrating and tied to broader
current issues and arguments, also seems to add one more pitch-perfect
layer to the ways in which the show asks us to think about the experiences,
lives, and worlds of older women in a society that tends (as this scene highlights
with particular clarity) not to include them in our cultural landscape much at
all. In a year when the single leading candidate for the presidency (I refuse
to consider Donald Trump for that title) is herself a woman over 65, Grace and Frankie engages with our
current moment in this important way as well.
At the time that
it’s four main characters and their storylines are thus so groundbreaking,
however, I would argue (to parallel things I said about Longmire in yesterday’s post) that in its use of the conventions
and traditions of the sitcom form Grace
and Frankie feels very comfortably familiar. That might be one reason why Transparent, which blends genres much
more into something like
a dramedy, has received more critical attention and popular buzz (of course
the parallels
to the Caitlyn Jenner story are another such reason). Yet just because Grace and Frankie stays more within
those familiar sitcom lines (featuring everything from physical comedy and
wacky misunderstandings to recurring catchphrases and jokes) doesn’t make it
less stylistically successful—indeed, I might argue that using such familiar
forms yet making them feel fresh and funny is itself a significant aesthetic
success, and one that Grace and Frankie most
definitely achieved for this viewer. Moreover, there’s a reason why the sitcom is one of television’s
oldest and most lasting forms—it taps into some of our most enduring
audience desires, our needs for laughter and comfort that not only continue
into our present moment, but have an even more necessary place alongside the
antiheroes and dark worlds that constitute so much of the best of current television.
Just one more reason why I’m thankful for Grace
and Frankie.
Next cultural
thanks-giving tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Cultural thanks-givings you’d share?
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