The fall of man: Men are reduced to oafs and put-upon morons in the newest crop of series
August 12, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- In the upcoming ABC show "Big Shots," four wealthy chumps lounge around a private club and whine about their wimpy lives. One guy's wife is cheating on him. Another guy's mistress controls him. And a cuckolded husband moans, "I'm so whipped, I can't tell my wife that the delivery company can't seem to find her shipment of Napoleons."
This is when a frowny "man" among them (Dylan McDermott) issues the TV statement of the year:
"Men -- we're the new women."
He's right in one big way. For generations, women have been portrayed on TV as prostitutes, dumb blonds, spurned lovers, sandwich makers, "Oh, honeys," man-eaters, and (if they're lucky) lawyers who may cry when they find out their mates are cheating on them.
But now it's men's turn to be the defeated, put-upon subservients.
I've watched the premiere episodes of the broadcast networks' new shows, and I can't find more than one or two high-quality men who are in a relationship of equals, or who are ethical, realistic, strong-willed and non-victimized.
Some sympathetic men do pop up, but they are left by their wives ("K-Ville"), cheated on ("Samantha Who?"), doomed to roam the Earth until a woman's love saves them ("New Amsterdam" and probably "Pushing Daisies" and "Reaper"), saved from death by a woman ("Chuck" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), incapable of asking out a girl ("Gossip Girl" and "The Big Bang Theory") and rendered virtually unnecessary for reproduction ("The Return of Jezebel James").
Silliest of all, perhaps, is how a good-guy cop in "Women's Murder Club" is labeled a "misogynist" for quietly saying a woman looks "very pretty."
Some men come close to being solid guys. Jimmy Smits plays a rum company exec in CBS' soapy "Cane." But you find out soon enough that he is, well, morally flexible. (I don't want to give it away.)
I suppose you could say the dad on the CW's "Running Wild" sticks up for himself, but then again, he forces his wife and high school children to move to South Africa on a whim, so he's completely out of his mind.
Wait, you know what? On NBC's "Journeyman," Kevin McKidd plays a very faithful husband who travels time to do good deeds. McKidd is Scottish. Maybe it takes a Scotsman to man up American TV.
ABC -- branded as the prime network for women viewers -- is the biggest offender. Take a peak at three new ABC projects.
• "Dirty Sexy Money": Men are corrupt, on drugs, cruel, dumb or siring a bastard child. The lead family man is supposed to be sympathetic, but he's a sellout for money and power, taking over his father's 24/7 job, even though his dad's job was the cause of his mother's suicide. What a dumbass.
• "Big Shots": One guy gets talked into couples therapy by both his wife and his mistress. Not that couples therapy is bad. But this guy somehow became a CEO despite being a total pansy loser.
• "Carpoolers": One husband works all day and does all the cooking and child rearing while his wife does one thing: watch TV. Another wimp rejects sex from his terrific wife (Faith Ford) because he fears she makes more money than he does. What a dolt.
The one man who is probably the most confident, faithful and successful family man on the new broadcast lineup is Ripley Holden (Lloyd Owen) of CBS' "Viva Laughlin." Ripley owns a casino in Nevada. But even he turns down sex from his hot, loving wife because he's stressed. I used to live in Vegas. I never had any idea guys there rejected overtures from their seductive women. You learn something every day.
Against this backdrop of losers, it's interesting to watch the very bad, nasty men on AMC's new "Mad Men." Set around 1960, it depicts how men back then could be sexist, racist jerkwads before people invented the phrases "sexual harassment" and "the Civil Rights Act." (Actually, "Mad Men" characters are not far from the overly macho pigs of "Entourage.")
Then for contrast, I watch the new fall shows, and the feminist in me can cheer that women characters are finally in control of their destinies, their relationships, their men and their wombs -- especially to serve as yin-yang for all the women celebrities and women in reality shows who are cumulatively treated as druggy, drunken, goal-less, backstabbing tarts.
But that's the theory of comeuppance and reparations against men. Two negatives do not make a positive.
It's the fall of man. And we were all created equally unappealing.
Realistically, what kind of woman wants anything to do with these conquered, pitiful cardboard cutouts? Some years back, a song asked, "Where have all the cowboys gone?" I want to know where all the "MASH" Hawkeyes went.
There is, in fact, only one realistic, great, fully formed adult male on any new series. He is Hank Moody on Showtime's "Californication," which starts Monday and is, coincidentally, the best new show of 2007.
Hank is a flawed novelist. His wife has left him and she's engaged to another man. But this does not destroy him. Sure, he drinks too much and struggles with writer's block. But even with all his baggage, he knows who he is. He doesn't apologize for sleeping around or engaging in harmless behaviors. He tries to be a good father. And he is honest and true. Many of these traits are in the script, but family man David Duchovny's brilliant portrayal puts flesh to Hank.
I was relieved to see the show, so I asked Duchovny, 47, about Hank's manly traits, and Duchovny correctly rephrased my characterization.
"What I like to say -- rather than male or female -- is there's no bull---- about the guy," Duchovny said. "So that makes him 'manly' in a way, I think. Although, a woman can be that way [free of bull----], too. I don't know if that makes her 'manly.' "
Duchovny is correct again. If a woman character is free of B.S., that doesn't make her manly. It makes her a self-aware, strong woman.
And I would argue the new fall shows feature far more centered, assured women (if flawed for narrative purposes) than men of the same stripe -- if you add up the females in "The Return of Jezebel James," "Journeyman," "Bionic Woman," "Life," "Carpoolers," "Women's Murder Club," "Pushing Daisies," "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and "Canterbury's Law."
There is one -- and only one -- female twit in the new fall shows, in CBS' "The Big Bang Theory." Yet, even that blond uses her hotness to manipulate two leading men (university scientists, no less) into gathering her stuff from her beefy ex-boyfriend's apartment.
So there you have it. Women have finally come into their own on TV. But who are they gonna date?
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- In the upcoming ABC show "Big Shots," four wealthy chumps lounge around a private club and whine about their wimpy lives. One guy's wife is cheating on him. Another guy's mistress controls him. And a cuckolded husband moans, "I'm so whipped, I can't tell my wife that the delivery company can't seem to find her shipment of Napoleons."
This is when a frowny "man" among them (Dylan McDermott) issues the TV statement of the year:
"Men -- we're the new women."
He's right in one big way. For generations, women have been portrayed on TV as prostitutes, dumb blonds, spurned lovers, sandwich makers, "Oh, honeys," man-eaters, and (if they're lucky) lawyers who may cry when they find out their mates are cheating on them.
But now it's men's turn to be the defeated, put-upon subservients.
I've watched the premiere episodes of the broadcast networks' new shows, and I can't find more than one or two high-quality men who are in a relationship of equals, or who are ethical, realistic, strong-willed and non-victimized.
Some sympathetic men do pop up, but they are left by their wives ("K-Ville"), cheated on ("Samantha Who?"), doomed to roam the Earth until a woman's love saves them ("New Amsterdam" and probably "Pushing Daisies" and "Reaper"), saved from death by a woman ("Chuck" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), incapable of asking out a girl ("Gossip Girl" and "The Big Bang Theory") and rendered virtually unnecessary for reproduction ("The Return of Jezebel James").
Silliest of all, perhaps, is how a good-guy cop in "Women's Murder Club" is labeled a "misogynist" for quietly saying a woman looks "very pretty."
Some men come close to being solid guys. Jimmy Smits plays a rum company exec in CBS' soapy "Cane." But you find out soon enough that he is, well, morally flexible. (I don't want to give it away.)
I suppose you could say the dad on the CW's "Running Wild" sticks up for himself, but then again, he forces his wife and high school children to move to South Africa on a whim, so he's completely out of his mind.
Wait, you know what? On NBC's "Journeyman," Kevin McKidd plays a very faithful husband who travels time to do good deeds. McKidd is Scottish. Maybe it takes a Scotsman to man up American TV.
ABC -- branded as the prime network for women viewers -- is the biggest offender. Take a peak at three new ABC projects.
• "Dirty Sexy Money": Men are corrupt, on drugs, cruel, dumb or siring a bastard child. The lead family man is supposed to be sympathetic, but he's a sellout for money and power, taking over his father's 24/7 job, even though his dad's job was the cause of his mother's suicide. What a dumbass.
• "Big Shots": One guy gets talked into couples therapy by both his wife and his mistress. Not that couples therapy is bad. But this guy somehow became a CEO despite being a total pansy loser.
• "Carpoolers": One husband works all day and does all the cooking and child rearing while his wife does one thing: watch TV. Another wimp rejects sex from his terrific wife (Faith Ford) because he fears she makes more money than he does. What a dolt.
The one man who is probably the most confident, faithful and successful family man on the new broadcast lineup is Ripley Holden (Lloyd Owen) of CBS' "Viva Laughlin." Ripley owns a casino in Nevada. But even he turns down sex from his hot, loving wife because he's stressed. I used to live in Vegas. I never had any idea guys there rejected overtures from their seductive women. You learn something every day.
Against this backdrop of losers, it's interesting to watch the very bad, nasty men on AMC's new "Mad Men." Set around 1960, it depicts how men back then could be sexist, racist jerkwads before people invented the phrases "sexual harassment" and "the Civil Rights Act." (Actually, "Mad Men" characters are not far from the overly macho pigs of "Entourage.")
Then for contrast, I watch the new fall shows, and the feminist in me can cheer that women characters are finally in control of their destinies, their relationships, their men and their wombs -- especially to serve as yin-yang for all the women celebrities and women in reality shows who are cumulatively treated as druggy, drunken, goal-less, backstabbing tarts.
But that's the theory of comeuppance and reparations against men. Two negatives do not make a positive.
It's the fall of man. And we were all created equally unappealing.
Realistically, what kind of woman wants anything to do with these conquered, pitiful cardboard cutouts? Some years back, a song asked, "Where have all the cowboys gone?" I want to know where all the "MASH" Hawkeyes went.
There is, in fact, only one realistic, great, fully formed adult male on any new series. He is Hank Moody on Showtime's "Californication," which starts Monday and is, coincidentally, the best new show of 2007.
Hank is a flawed novelist. His wife has left him and she's engaged to another man. But this does not destroy him. Sure, he drinks too much and struggles with writer's block. But even with all his baggage, he knows who he is. He doesn't apologize for sleeping around or engaging in harmless behaviors. He tries to be a good father. And he is honest and true. Many of these traits are in the script, but family man David Duchovny's brilliant portrayal puts flesh to Hank.
I was relieved to see the show, so I asked Duchovny, 47, about Hank's manly traits, and Duchovny correctly rephrased my characterization.
"What I like to say -- rather than male or female -- is there's no bull---- about the guy," Duchovny said. "So that makes him 'manly' in a way, I think. Although, a woman can be that way [free of bull----], too. I don't know if that makes her 'manly.' "
Duchovny is correct again. If a woman character is free of B.S., that doesn't make her manly. It makes her a self-aware, strong woman.
And I would argue the new fall shows feature far more centered, assured women (if flawed for narrative purposes) than men of the same stripe -- if you add up the females in "The Return of Jezebel James," "Journeyman," "Bionic Woman," "Life," "Carpoolers," "Women's Murder Club," "Pushing Daisies," "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and "Canterbury's Law."
There is one -- and only one -- female twit in the new fall shows, in CBS' "The Big Bang Theory." Yet, even that blond uses her hotness to manipulate two leading men (university scientists, no less) into gathering her stuff from her beefy ex-boyfriend's apartment.
So there you have it. Women have finally come into their own on TV. But who are they gonna date?
delfman@suntimes.com
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