30 Rock 1x01-2x15

[oyceter]

This show is apparently based on Tina Fey's experiences as a writer on Saturday Night Live. I don't watch SNL and tend to find most things on Comedy Central unfunny, so I am probably not the target audience for this show. That said, I watched two seasons in a few days because they were streaming on Netflix and I wanted something nattering on in the background when I was doing a jigsaw puzzle.

(I love jigsaws! And puzzles! I read nearly nothing this summer because I was playing Picross and Picross 3D on my sister's Nintendo DS the entire time! She says I am obsessed, for some odd reason.)

I appreciate having a show on TV written, produced, and starring a woman, and a woman over her twenties at that. However, I really hate a lot of the humor in the show for many of the same reasons why I hate a lot of the standup and other comedy shows I've seen. I'm fine with Jack being sexist and totally corporate, and he's actually one of my favorite characters on the show, but the way the show does liberal lip service while actually supporting the "Why do we have to be so PC? Lighten up, it's funny!" brigade drove me up the wall.

Liz Lemon is a perfect personification of white guilt and privilege, and although the show points it out sometimes, it does so by sending the message that stereotypes are stereotypes because they're true, that people shouldn't feel white guilt not because it turns the focus to white people but because there is nothing to feel guilty about. So far, the show has had black characters play the race card several times, noted that affirmative action gives people unfair advantages, made fun of mental illness, and in general made fun of those uptight PC people who take offense at everything.

Sometimes the show does break stereotypes instead of conforming to them (I especially like Dot Com), but mostly it's with minor characters and done very rarely. It also tries to make fun of stereotypes, but unfortunately, what usually happens is that the show has a situation, goes "Hey, this is offensive and stereotypical!" and then proceeds to go "But it's funny! Haha! We will just point out that we are reinforcing stereotypes about black people while never actually doing much to break those stereotypes, and the fact that we're doing it ironically makes it ok!" It's a little better with feminism than with other social justice issues, but even then, Liz Lemon comes off as a privileged white feminist who is more afraid of offending people than she is of not actually hurting people.

It's especially frustrating because at times I see things I would like to watch, such as Liz trying to balance her career and personal life and romance, Liz and Jack's mentor/mentee relationship (my favorite part of the show), and the camaraderie among the TNG staff, but those bits are sadly small compared to everything else.

I also hate that the show makes me feel like that uptight PC feminazi who doesn't think anything is funny, but I think it's possible to be funny while also making political points. Er, that is, political points that aren't "Black people play the race card all the time! White people feel guilty too often! It's too bad all fat women are good for is humor, but oh well!"

Bah.

Comments

[wychwood]

I read a post a while ago about Liz Lemon and feminism which I thought was interesting and might be relevant to what you're talking about here?

I hate shows that make me feel like I'm being uptight when really it's just that they're not actually funny, only offensive.

[oyceter]

That post is so on the spot! I didn't even go into how few women there are and how annoying Jenna's characterization is and how little we see of her supposed very long friendship with Liz. And the way the guys leer at hot women and mock not hot women or really mock hot but not young women (young being early twenties!!).

And that isn't even going into how the show seems to think it's so edgy for talking about race, or into how offensive the portrayals of disability have been (there was one on a Hapsburg prince who is in a wheelchair with only one working hand and it's supposed to be funny because hur hur inbreeding!) or or or!

[vito_excalibur]

So far, the show has had black characters play the race card several times, noted that affirmative action gives people unfair advantages

This drives me up the goddamn wall. I have seen probably 20 fictional depictions of PoC unfairly claiming that something was racism for every fictional depiction of racism that was acknowledged as such. And we wonder why some people think racism is over and PoC are too sensitive.

[oyceter]

OMG. It is supposed to be all funny when someone is submitting a job app and a black guy using a wheelchair goes past and a character goes, "Well, he's got it in the bag." BLEH. And me, I am sitting there thinking, Yeah right, I bet that guy has been denied disability for years and no one talks to him and everyone assumes he's totally incompetent and he has to try eight times as hard as everyone else. UGH.

[sanguinity]

We only watched half a season, waiting for that "oh, that's why they watch it" transformation to happen, before we decided we couldn't take it any more. Between the "just PC-ness" crap on the one hand, and Jack's continual humiliations of Liz Lemon on the other (what, he's a sexist pig and he's right?) it was just ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.

[oyceter]

I totally don't get it. Like, I would be better with Jack as a character because I think he's funny if the show didn't constantly keep saying "he's right," but all the things that they seem to want read as so witty and ironic and daring just... aren't. UGH. People! Reinforcing the status quo is not daring and ironic!

[glass_icarus]

auuuugh. :( people keep telling me to give 30 Rock a shot! and i have been meaning to!- but given this, i think i might scratch it from my list. sigh.

[crossedwires]

I gave it a shot, a couple of times, but didn't like it because of what oyceter wrote. (I tend to feel this way about "Better Off Ted" too.)

[oyceter]

I kind of feel dirty that I watched so much of it! I think it would drive you up the wall, so this is definitely an anti-rec.

[littlebutfierce]

Ha, I was totally gonna drop that Tiger Beatdown link about the show. I've heard so much about this show that makes me think it's most definitely not for me (though like you, I'm so not its target audience for the same reasons), & your post has cemented it!

[oyceter]

That link is so spot on! Except even it doesn't go into all the problems with race and disability and they never even mention class except poor black people and privileged middle class vs. uber rich people. GAH. It is almost worse than all the network shows with terrible politics that kill off all the poc because it thinks it's all liberal and cool and hip and stuff.