Friday, October 22, 2010

BOBOS ON TELEVISION: Normally, David Brooks' pieces on the op-ed page of the Times are outside the scope of this blog, but when he talks about television, as he does today, it falls squarely within our bailiwick. Part of Brooks' thesis today is that sitcoms in particular have moved away from being "family-based" to shows about "groups of unrelated friends who have the time to lounge around apartments, coffee shops and workplaces exchanging witticisms about each other and the passing scene." Three issues I have with him here:
  • Brooks ignores that the most successful, both critically and commercially, sitcom of the past few years is Modern Family, which is unquestionably a "family-based" sitcom, and the current top-rated sitcom on television is Two And A Half Men, which revolves around an admittedly unorthodox and dysfunctional family unit of its own. (He also overlooks that non-family-based sitcoms have a long and distinguished history--Mary Tyler Moore, M*A*S*H, Taxi, and Cheers all were not family-based, and even Dick Van Dyke had plotlines that were workplace-centric.)
  • Inexplicably, Brooks, citing a Neal Gabler piece from the LA Times, asserts that new sitcoms Better With You and Raising Hope aren't family-based. Better With You is most assuredly about a family unit (mother, father, two adult daughters, and the daughters' romantic partners), and Raising Hope is largely based on a family unit (though has regulars from outside the unit).
  • Brooks cites a lot of shows (past and present) that don't involve traditional family units--Friends, Glee, HIMYM, Big Bang Theory. However, almost every one of those shows is centered around characters who because of geography, family discord, or other reasons, may not have a family in the traditional sense near them, and how the group of friends become a family unit of their own (this is particularly true for Friends and HIMYM, and is perhaps the overriding theme of The Office).
Seems to me David Brooks needs to spend a little more time watching TV.

16 comments:

  1. Making broad generalizations that are utterly unsupported by evidence is the hallmark of every David Brooks column I've ever read, and I'll leave it at that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ramar2:00 PM

    Brooks also *completely* overlooks the sociological import of Feces My Dad Says.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bill.2:23 PM

    Tom Scocca, in slate: "Does David Brooks even own a TV set? Or does he while away the evenings putting on puppet shows for himself?"

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fred App2:27 PM

    What this proves is that you can always find anecdotal evidence to back up whatever theory you want to propose. But anecdotal evidence is different than real evidence.

    Brooks should try using a reference book once in a while. I happen to have one here. It catalogs the Top 100 series between 1946 and 1979, which I assume is the time period that Brooks considers the "good old days." Among the sitcoms on this list, in addition to the ones that Matt mentions, are ""Three's Company," "Laverne and Shirley," "Gomer Pyle," "Alice," "Newhart," "Night Court," "Golden Girls," "Petticoat Junction" and "Barney Miller." Not to mention shows that show only partial families, like the widowed Andy Griffith, Fred MacMurray or Redd Foxx.

    And those are only the shows among the Top 100. You can find dozens more if you looked a little bit harder. Just like, if you looked a little harder, you'd see "Modern Family" and similar shows on TV now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Heather K2:31 PM

    This column gives me the feeling that he is aware of the existence of Friends and 30 Rock and then randomly googled a few things to throw in without bothering to check.

    ReplyDelete
  6. isaac_spaceman2:46 PM

    I don't see anything objectionable about Brooks's article at all.  He's not being controversial when he says that flock comedies appeal to both dramatic imperative and viewer desires.  He's being downright insightful when he points out that flock comedies mirror (or, one might argue, are mirrored by) modern social technology.  He is not, I think, lamenting either the downfall of the traditional family sitcom or shows about one-friend friendships (Odd Couple?).  And he emphatically is not saying "there used to be only family sitcoms, and now there are only friendship sitcoms."  Of course people can find counterexamples.  Brooks has the impression that there are fewer family sitcoms now than then and more flock comedies now than then -- it's certainly an impression capable of empirical disproof (or proof), but it also happens to be an impression I tend to share. 

    Arguing about that small, unsupported factual assertion misses the point he's making, though, which is that television is doing a very good job of exploring changes in cultural understanding of friendship.  He could have made exactly the same point by just pointing to the rise of flock comedies and not mentioning any decline in family sitcoms.  The thing that seems to be rankling people is not central to the thesis.  And is there really any dispute that what he calls "flock comedies" -- which, given his examples, I take to mean shows about unrelated people who choose to hang around together for reasons unrelated to employment, and usually in their leisure time -- are in greater abundance post-Friends than pre-Friends? 

    You could have an interesting debate about Brooks's thesis, or even the tiny questionable factual assertion in it, but I cannot fathom getting emotionally invested in it. I think people are getting overheated just because its Brooks. 

    ReplyDelete
  7. isaac_spaceman2:48 PM

    I mean no disrespect, Fred App, but this is all anecdotal evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Daniel Fienberg2:48 PM

    Yup. That column hurts my head. The inclusion of "30 Rock" as a "flock" comedy rather than a "workplace sitcom" is idiotic. 

    And only somebody who has never watched a second of said shows would say that "Raising Hope," "Better with You" and "Feces My Dad Says" aren't ALL family sitcoms, through and through, albeit maybe family sitcoms that reflect the modern nature of family. And "Better With You" resides in a block with "Modern Family" and "The Middle," which are both family comedies, as well as "Cougar Town," which is a family-flock hybrid.

    Oh well. Whatevs!

    -Daniel

    ReplyDelete
  9. The Pathetic Earthling3:33 PM

    Which is why The Rule should always be read broadly.

    ReplyDelete
  10. isaac_spaceman3:42 PM

    Damn me for dropping an apostrophe

    ReplyDelete
  11. christy in nyc5:39 PM

    There's a problem in lumping together workplace and flock comedies. Workplace comedies have been ubiquitious long before social networking came along. In my lifetime they have been the norm, really. "Flock" comedies have only recently gotten as common as workplace and family comedies. (Man, the Golden Girls was SO ahead of its time). Obviously, saying Better With You and Raising Hope are anything other than family comedies is absurd. And there are a LOT of family comedies out there, new and long-running, traditional and unusual alike.

    So the question is, in terms of whether the way our friendships have changed is being reflected in the types of shows we watch, are workplace and flock comedies functionally all that different from one another in this context? Workplace comedies involve people hanging out in groups of several instead of one-on-one. Workplace comedies have sexual tension, potentially between several overlapping pairs of characters. One can watch a workplace comedy to escape from the worries of family life, or to fantasize about having more time to spend with non-relatives. The main difference is that in a workplace comedy, the group comes together because they have all chosen the same workplace. In a flock comedy, the group comes together because they have all chosen one another. I'm not sure how meaningful that difference is, because it really comes down to their having important things in common.

    Also there is more emphasis on leisure, obviously, in a flock comedy.

    Those two differences could lead to an interesting essay or more about why the flock comedy has become so much more common in the past decade or so. But this is not that essay. It's just not all that thought out. And I say this with basically no prior opinion about the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lindy6:59 PM

    Lawyered

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous7:34 PM

    carisoprodol fioricetdiscreet fioricet

    Over the waters, aib has poured an then high solstice.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous12:00 AM

    If you are goіng for most exсellent contentѕ like
    mysеlf, only раy a quick vіsіt thiѕ website еveгy dаy аѕ it pгоvides quаlity contents, thanκs

    Неre is mу blog ρoѕt: quick payday loans

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous1:36 AM

    It's actually a great and useful piece of info. I'm ѕatisfіed that you ѕimply
    shared this helpful info wіth us. Please keеp us informed like this.
    Thank you fοr shaгing.

    My web-site Same Day Payday Loans

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous11:40 PM

    Fantastіc blog! Dο you havе any recommendatiоns for asρirіng writers?
    І'm planning to start my own website soon but I'm а little loѕt on eѵerything.
    Would you prορose starting with a
    free ρlatform lіke Wοrԁpress оr go for a paid
    optіon? There аre so many choiceѕ out thеrе thаt I'm totally confused .. Any ideas? Thank you!

    Review my blog - payday loans

    ReplyDelete