Bewitched: About That Premise

Many people know of, if they do not remember, the classic 1960s television show Bewitched, starring Elizabeth Montgomery.  However, for those of you who don’t remember it, here is a quick refresher on the premise: Montgomery plays Samantha, who is highly independent.  Her husband, Darrin, bids Samantha to hide her superior self-sufficiency, and for the most part, Samantha complies.  Sometimes she doesn’t, and wacky hijinks ensue.

The premise is laid out in the very first episode.  On their wedding night, Samantha reveals to Darrin her cosmopolitan background.  With her mother, Samantha has lived in a bohemian style that differs from many women of the early 1960s.  She’s used to supporting herself, and has a college degree.  She’s willing to give it all up to be married to Darrin, but Darrin is disturbed.  Soon his attraction to Samantha overwhelms his qualms, but after the wedding night, he warns Samantha, “It won’t be easy.  It’s tough enough being married to an advertising man if you’re normal.  [. . .] I mean you’re going to have to learn to be a suburban housewife.  [. . .]  You’ll have to learn to cook, and keep house, and go to my mother’s house for dinner every Friday night” (1×01, “I, Darrin, Take This Witch, Samantha”).

“Darling, it sounds wonderful!” Samantha tells him.  “And soon we’ll be a normal, happy couple with no problems, just like everybody else.  And then my mother can come and visit for a while and—”  At this point Samantha stops, seeing the look on Darrin’s face.  Realizing her mother is the very person who instilled her with the fiery independence Darrin so loathes, Samantha backs down.

In the second half of the episode, an old flame of Darrin’s—Sheila Summers—learns that he is recently married.  Sheila knows how to keep house, cook, and act as hostess—which she proves by inviting Darrin and Samantha to a dinner party.  At the party, she attempts to outclass Samantha.  Her experience in entertaining is obvious, she flirts with Darrin, and she continues to let fly clumsy verbal barbs in Samantha’s direction.  At last, unable to contain herself, Samantha lets loose against Sheila, delivering such an articulate dressing-down that the entire table remains stunned and incredulous in the face of Samantha’s lingual acumen and wit. Darrin, however, reprimands her she promised to give up that “stuff.”

Not only does he ask her to hide her intelligence, but he is appalled even when she uses it in the privacy of her own home.  He is not just asking that she give up the trappings of her former life: a career or any life she might have had outside of caring for him.  Housewifery, indeed, can be a career, and Samantha would make it an intriguing one.  He is asking instead that she give up something more intrinsic: the very power and abilities that would give her the means to live without him.  The message is clear: she is meant to exist only as an accessory to Darrin.

Darrin appears to desire this because it is “normal.”  Again and again, Bewitched tells us that it is “normal” that a woman should exist as a mere ornament to cook and clean for her husband, and make him look good at parties.  When Samantha acts outside of these parameters, Darrin reprimands her.  When she acts within them, but uses special skill or intelligence to solve problems, Darrin again reprimands her.

The subtext—at times, explicitly made text—is that Darrin resents the fact that his wife is more savvy and talented than he is.  While Darrin makes it clear that he finds Samantha’s ability to fend for herself unnatural, it also becomes evident that he asks her to hide her skills less because they are strange in and of themselves, and more because the fact that she is, in effect, more powerful than he is damages his ego.

The “unnaturalness” of Samantha’s abilities is fundamental to the central premise.  At one point Darrin tells Samantha that he loves her for herself, and doesn’t need any of the “extra,” revealing that he does not regard anything that makes Samantha strong as a part of who she is.  He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the various factors which may have informed Samantha’s character.

No doubt Samantha’s self-sufficiency is related to her socioeconomic status.  While the focus of Bewitched is on Samantha’s powers of intellect, we are given hints that she also may be powerful due to wealth.  Wealth gives Samantha a financial autonomy that Darrin demands she forsake.  In fact, there is an episode in which Darrin receives the benefit of Samantha’s wealth: he is laid up from a sprained ankle; Samantha buys him everything he requires, including a nurse to see to all of his needs.  While Darrin obviously enjoys being pampered, by the end of the episode he decides he would rather work in order to earn what he wants, and Samantha takes back everything she purchased.  Again, this is what is considered “normal” (1×17, “A is for Aardvark”).

Samantha’s socioeconomic status may be related to her culture, though obviously the latter is not causal to the former.  Bewitched suggests that Samantha and her mother may be of a different ethnicity or religion.  Samantha is attempting to “pass,” whereas her mother demands that she embrace her heritage.  Darrin, in typical fashion, requests that Samantha hide all evidence of her background, and sometimes is outright bigoted toward her culture.  In “The Witches Are Out,” Darrin’s art for an ad-campaign portrays the very stereotype that has been applied to Samantha in the past (1×07).  He doesn’t understand why she finds his ad offensive.  In the same episode, Darrin suffers a nightmarish vision in which all of his children take after Samantha, demonstrating the more stereotypical behaviors of someone of her background.

Although Samantha is frequently offended or angered by Darrin’s prejudices, she submits to the ultimatum that she refrain from using her superior intellect or skills, and that she hide her background from other people.  Not only does Samantha submit, she seems eager to participate in this form of indentured servitude.  When she uses her powers to solve a problem, give people their just due, or enjoy herself a little, she seems apologetic, often admitting she shouldn’t have done so.  Her ultimate goal, she claims, is to be a normal wife, which apparently means cooking and cleaning without bringing any of the creativity or flare to it that her heightened intellect might warrant.

A prime example of Samantha’s desire to submit is the episode, “Witch Or Wife” (1×08).  Samantha goes to Paris with her mother (again, a reference to her wealthy background) without informing her husband first.  He is upset, but Samantha going to Paris causes him not only to reflect on her behavior, but the entire circumstances of their marriage.  At last he concludes that he is standing in her way: “You can’t expect to snatch an eagle out of the sky, tie it to the ground, clip its wings, and expect it to walk around with a smile on its beak.”

Samantha tries to apologize, but Darrin goes on to say that no one could blame her for her behavior.  It’s one of the only times that Darrin seems to understand that his terms for their marriage dictate that she behave in a way that is not natural to her.  “This is a poor swap for Europe, glamor, and gaiety,” he says (again referencing Samantha’s rich—and cosmopolitan—background).

But Samantha replies by saying, “All I want is the normal life of a normal housewife.”

“I’m saying I’m not going to stand in the way of your freedom,” Darrin goes on, “and that’s obviously what you want.”

“That’s not true,” Samantha says, making it very clear that Darrin standing in the way of her freedom is precisely what she does want.

Samantha, as an intelligent an independent woman, has obviously made this decision of her own accord.  She claims she wishes to give up her intelligence and skill because she loves Darrin.  The implication that love demands submission and sacrifice of our assets and skills is upsetting, but this is Samantha’s individual choice.

More unsettling is the sense from the show that Darrin’s expectation that she make that choice—that she accept the clipping of her wings—is perfectly normal.  There are very few moments where the audience is given to question why Darrin would want her to be less than she is; instead, the premise seems to be just a given.  The idea that what they both want is “normal” is never called into question.  A “normal” household in the 1960s, Bewitched suggests, is one in which wives, if they are more intelligent or skilled than their husbands, hide their abilities such that their husbands are shone in the best light, and their egos don’t get bruised.

The only one who questions this situation is Endora, Samantha’s mother.  Endora, rather than rejecting her freedom as Samantha does, embraces it.  In doing so, she makes use of her considerable intelligence and wealth.  She also does not seem to care if she appears “unnatural,” almost always appearing in eccentric dress (possibly culturally influenced).  Over and over again Endora tries to point out to Samantha that she is enslaved; Darrin is denying her her freedom.  Samantha, however, thinks her mother is wrong, as does Darrin.

The text of the show itself seems to suggest that Endora is wrong.  Her frequent protests are met with the sound of a laugh track, and the characters react to her with a typical, “this is how mothers-in-law will be!” attitude.  And yet, on some level the writers of the show seem cognizant of the indignity of Samantha’s situation, and Darrin’s unreasonableness in demanding that she submit to it.  Darrin’s speech about the eagle in “Witch or Wife” is evidence of that.

Yet the premise of the show must be maintained; Samantha must refrain from using her powers and pretend she does not have them, and Darrin must continue to ask that she do so.  By the end of every episode, we are returned to the status quo: a world in which it is normal to request that a woman never be more powerful than a man, and to forsake her intelligence, wit, and talent in order to cook and clean.

Bewitched could have been a metaphor for many different things.  It could have been a very insightful show about a woman who has to keep elements of her background a secret, and the partner who has to help keep that secret.  But because the secret that has to be kept is the fact that Samantha is more powerful than her husband, it is instead a show about gender politics, and repression in the 1960s.

I was watching Bewitched with a man approaching sixty years of age the other day.  As we incredulously viewed the spectacular amount of sexism unfolding before our eyes, he said, “Just think: I was raised on this.”

The series itself is charming: Elizabeth Montgomery is as bewitching as the title suggests; her intelligence and wit truly sparkle, and Darrin is a bumbling fool who is amusing to watch.  It would be possible to view this program, even today, and forget what the show is really about.  But as magical as our media is these days, it is important to consider the true implications of what our symbolism and metaphors mean.


Adrianne Palicki Will Not Wear the Venus Girdle

The Wonder Woman TV show got canned, and comics fans of various stripes are rushing to explain why it should or shouldn’t have. The Beat has a roundup. They link to dcwomenkickingass, who has a heartfelt rant saying in part:

Why is Thor so easy to get to screen, but Wonder Woman is reduced to a television drama by David E. Kelley where she’s a superhero but also a female who worries about her body and pines for her boyfriend? Why when that treatment fails do the stories focus not on the execution but on the character?

Why is it when it comes to a male character like the Hulk, we don’t see that reaction. “Oh gee, it couldn’t possibly be the character of the Hulk that is the problem. We’ll just make three movies until we get the execution right.” Three takes. Not one.

And we have seen treatments that have worked. For all its gender issues the animated movie showed that Wonder Woman can be badass and compelling.

DCU Online has Wonder Woman as a core character and anyone who has seen the cinematic trailer can see how bad ass she would look on screen.

And the original TV show, despite being 30 years ago, worked.

The problem with adapting Wonder Woman to the screen, either big or small, has nothing to do with the character other than her gender. The recent television show felt they needed to turn her into something she’s not. She’s not Ally McBeal. She’s Wonder Woman….

How fucking sad is it that we as a gender are forced to prove ourselves worthy as a film audience once again? Every time there is a hit or success outside the narrow little lens that Hollywood views us it is an aberration or a fluke.

Hollywood is certainly sexist. But…is it really the case that Hollywood and television are uninterested in promoting shows about kick-ass women? La Femme Nikita just got renewed. The terrible movie Priest features Maggie Q as a superninja kicking ass. Bones’ main character is a female physical anthropologist/best-selling novelist martial arts expert. There’s multiple killer female assassin movies just released or coming out. There’s Salt from last year. Is there really a reluctance on the part of entertainment media to show women in tight clothes kicking ass?

I think much more of a problem is that large numbers of viewers just don’t necessarily share dcwomenkickingass’ enthusiasm for Wonder Woman, whether she’s kicking ass or not. The cancellation of wonder woman isn’t a blow to women everywhere. It’s a blow to women who like Wonder Woman maybe…but that’s not all that many women.

I thought I’d reprint my comment from the Beat thread here.

I don’t think it’s a problem of growing expectations exactly. It’s a problem that the character is really, really weird. The costume is bizarre even by super-hero standards (yes, even by superhero standards); she’s all about bondage; she’s got nutjob accessories like the invisible plane; she’s supposed to be a pacifist who runs around hitting people. She’s goofy. Which I love, love, love about her — those early Marston/Peter comics are basically the best super-hero comics ever, damn it. But the fact that she’s so idiosyncratically weird it makes her much harder to sell than, say, a secret agent with a tragic backstory who shoots people like Salt.

WW was very popular 70 years ago in comics and for a few years on television back in the 70s. Outside of that, people have really had trouble figuring out what to do with her, even as female action heroes have become really really popular (Buffy, Xena, Angelina Jolie in everything, Kill Bill, La Femme Nikita (recently re-jiggered), there’s like three more female assassin movies just come out or coming out whose titles I can’t remember…there’s just no shortage of examples.)

I don’t exactly understand the logic of wanting new WW product anyway. The TV show looked like it was going to be dreadful. If you like WW, why not just go reread the old stuff? What’s so validating about having some corporation make some stupid show that uses the character you love in insulting and moronic ways? Why is Thor validated by some stupid movie? Why is Batman validated by being put in a ridiculous styrofoam suit and having a bunch of mediocre to bad films made about him? Why do you need your art to be a pop cultural phenomena for it to matter? Like I said, I don’t get it.

I make similar points in this essay here.

Just to expand a little…I agree with dcwomenkickingass that female superhero pop culture efforts can work. Twilight is a female superhero film in a lot of ways; Bella certainly gets superpowers at the end. Buffy was a female superhero project. Sailor Moon is a female superhero story which was crazy popular. And, again, women with ninja powers kicking butt are all over the pop culture landscape. Temperance Brennan from Bones (the anthropologist/novelist/martial artist mentioned above) even dresses up as Wonder Woman on occasion. As a joke.

So the issue isn’t whether female’s kicking ass or even female superheroes can be popular. The issue is whether female superheroes toeing the very narrow genre constraints of mainstream comics can be especially popular. The issue is whether most women really want their superheoines with secret identities and dressed in swimsuits and coming out of an industry that has been male-dominated for decades — an industry that has shown over and over again that it has only the vaguest idea how to appeal to a female audience. The answer in general to that question has been that no, they don’t, they’d rather get their kick-ass women fix elsewhere.

I can see where that’s really frustrating for fans like dcwomenkickingass, who are in the minority that really like the superhero women on offer by the big two. And I can see arguing that media is sexist. But I think it’s worth pointing out that less sexism in Hollywood really, really would not have to go along with more Wonder Woman in Hollywood. Because, like I said, WW just isn’t that popular and is very weird and has that costume that doesn’t exactly scream “independent woman” and doesn’t have a clear romantic interest with angst and tension, which is what you generally look for in female genre product, and…well the list goes on. But the upshot is that if you wanted to create a woman kicking ass, even if you were really committed to feminism, you might think twice before going with Wonder Woman.

I’ll end with another comment I left on the Beat, where DF said that WW had become boring except for maybe Darwyn Cooke’s version of her. I replied:

I like Darwyn Cooke’s version, including his satirical take. I’d agree that his version is probably as good as it gets after Marston…unless you go to once-removed versions like Alan Moore’s Glory or Promethea or Adam Warren’s Empowered.

I think the boredom is part of not knowing how to deal with the original concept. And the original concept is not going to be redone; you’re not going to see WW in a gimp mask or Amazons hunting each other in deer costumes or entire races of seal men subjugating themselves to women or even giant space-faring kangaroos. It’s just not going to happen. Which is a shame, and I strongly believe that all girls and boys and adults should read the original Marston/Peter run, which is one of the most ridiculously sublime pieces of work the comics medium has to offer. But I don’t need new stories with WW anymore than I especially need some random Hollywood development team to do the brand new adventures of Elizabeth Bennett.

Update: Aha! I was wondering why we were getting commenters all of a sudden. dcwomenkickinass has a response to this post here.

Fringe, Metadialogue, and the Multiverse

There’s a strange phenomenon that sometimes happens in later seasons of television shows, where the weight of all of those previous years occasionally produces moments of metadialogue. It frequently appears as part of an effort to cope with the sheer unlikelihood of seven seasons of drama, the typical string of intensely emotional events which is unpunctuated by moments of normal, boring, every day life. A few weeks ago on Grey’s Anatomy, for example, a newer doctor asked sort-of protagonist Meredith Grey why Alex Kharev, one of the other remaining original characters, seems like such a jerk. “He’s been through a lot,” answers Meredith. “He had a girl go crazy on him, his wife almost died and then she walked out on him. And then he was shot and almost bled to death in an elevator.” It’s a weird moment; not only does it puncture the shoe’s admittedly-thin veil of plausibility (no one has that level of wackadoo tragedy happen to them in such a short span of time), but Meredith’s wryly explanatory list just draws attention to the oddity of Alex’s excessively eventful life. Grey’s Anatomy seems to be doing its best to brush over this bit of patent fictionality by hiding it in plain sight, but it’s hard to imagine writing or hearing the line without immediately recognizing the show’s artifice. Once you start looking for this kind of dialogue, you see it everywhere – detectives on cop shows grouse about how many dead bodies they see in a year, characters joke about that one time a few years ago when they were buried alive, long lasting characters look around and comment on the number of new hospital staff members after a particularly disruptive cast turnover. One of the characters on another Shonda Rhimes show, a therapist named Violet, frequently bemoans her bad luck, and at one point even asks – “Why does this sort of thing keep happening to us?” Because you’re on a primetime soap opera, Violet. Happiness does not make for good plot.

There was a particularly good example of this kind of metadialogue on the J.J. Abrams show Fringe a few months ago. (*Ahem*: Major Fringe spoilers ahead, if you’re concerned about that sort of thing). Fringe has undergone a pretty monumental transformation from the show that first appeared to the show currently airing on Friday nights. Initially, Fringe followed a formula made familiar by The X-Files, a police procedural with added supernatural elements – monsters and the unexplained spring out of the woodwork, and an eccentric, intrepid team of curious investigators searches for the reasons why (and the ways to stop it). Most new episodes came packaged with a new supernatural event which was handily dispatched by the hour’s end, and although some characters and plotlines hinted at a deep, dark secret in the background, that secret functioned asymptotically. Stories seemed to continually approach the point of uncovering the series’ organizing mystery, but they drew closer and closer without ever arriving at the mystery’s content.

Nothing says procedural like a cop in a doorframe holding up a badge

 

At some point during its second season, though, Fringe took a sharp right turn into the weird (and arguably, the better). Olivia and Peter, investigators of “fringe science,” along with Peter’s fabulously off-kilter mad scientist father Walter, discover and then travel to a parallel universe (the existence of which provides the underlying explanation for many of the previous season’s strange phenomena). The other universe, or “Over There,” is home to many doppelgänger versions of Fringe‘s original characters, including a much more fun-loving and freewheeling Olivia (who Peter dubs Faux-livia) and a powerful, sane version of Walter (Walternate). As it turns out, the rules of Over There are different from our own, and the course of history has shifted slightly, leading to the complete quarantine of Boston and much of the Midwest, a militarized society, a gold rather than green Statue of Liberty, and the continued use of zeppelins. (Zeppelins!)

Walter vs. Walternate

 

The great thing about Fringe‘s Over There is that its entertaining, superficial differences also come with a new set of narratological paradigms. As Peter and Olivia discover, the breach between universes has led to the alternate universe’s gradual disintegration, and Walternate’s method of holding his world together frequently involves trapping thousands of unfortunate, innocent citizens in a timeless, motionless state – literally frozen in amber – in order to prevent the universe from unraveling. The stakes are much higher, and those simple Monster of the Week plotlines are no longer sufficient to represent or address the other universe’s terrifyingly fragile state. In their own universe, Peter and Olivia encountered and dispatched isolated pockets of oddity, leading to the show’s episodic and frustratingly static structure, but Over There, a monster is never just a single event. Any deviation from the standard laws of physics is a potential site of total, universal dissolution, and unless it can be stopped, hundreds or thousands of people could die in order to keep the world from simply falling apart. As a result, the show has drifted away from its initially episodic structure into something more serialized, allowing plots to expand beyond the boundaries of an hour to keep pace with the long-term goals of the main characters Over There, who have plans to save their universe that necessarily exist outside the moment of an individual bizarre occurrence.

I should mention that although the other universe introduced an entirely different set of narrative possibilities for the show, Fringe has not abandoned its episodic format. Instead, in a lovely convergence of form and content, the troublesome fictional breach between universes has been accompanied by blended narratological structures. Serialized plot lines often come packaged inside a particular, episode-length conflict, and those smaller procedural story lines no longer produce the same infuriating fictional stasis that plagued Fringe during its first season. In fact, Fringe has done a great job of using some of the often-ignored paratextual possibilities of the episodic structure to provide landmarks and signals inside its new multiverse. The show’s opening credits, previously a uniform blue, remain blue when the episode takes place in the show’s original universe, but turn red when the episode takes place Over There. (There’s also a third possibility, which allows episodes that take place in the past to begin with an awesome retro-themed credit sequence). In other words, it’s not just that the new universe changed Fringe from an episodic into a serialized show, but rather, both serialized and episodic elements became far more meaningful inside a multiverse where significant plot events might remain meaningful outside the space of a single episode.

All of which brings me back around to my initial point – that wonderful, weird moment of metadialogue that sparked this whole thing in the first place. At one point during a recent episode, Peter pauses in a serious discussion with Olivia about their troubled romantic relationship (he falls in love with Faux-livia, life gets very complicated) and asks, “does it ever feel like every time we get close to getting the answers, someone changes the question?” It does feel that way, and Peter’s right, of course. The questions have to keep changing, because otherwise, the search for answers would grow tedious, and once every question has an answer, the show has no purpose. But the line is particularly apt because Fringe stopped merely changing the content of the questions, and began to change the nature of the questions as well. It went from, “why does this man have a mechanical heart?” and, “how do we stop this mysterious virus?” to, “who has a stronger ethical code, Walter or Walternate?” and, “which universe deserves to be saved?”

I don’t want to suggest that Fringe is now perfect, or that purely episodic shows are necessarily inferior, or that any struggling scifi show should throw in a parallel universe and cross its fingers. But that line from Peter highlights the thing that’s helped move Fringe from an easily forgettable show into something effective and watchable – the questions change. Maybe it’s because Fringe has been under the threat of near-cancellation from its beginning, or because the voices involved in its production changed, or because it just took a season and a half to figure itself out, but Fringe’s malleability has kept it from succumbing to inertia. As a result, the monsters are scarier, and that moment of metadialogue which elicits such groaning on a show like Grey’s Anatomy, yields a wry smile instead.

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Update by Noah: You can read more of Kathryn’s writing at her blog.

Stan the Man

I should probably introduce myself. I’m not just some random guy who popped up in the comments section and started running his mouth when the Wire roundtable began (though I certainly am that). I used to blog about The Wire during seasons 4 and 5. In an attempt to get a handle on the show, and a desperate bid to fill content from week to week, I spent a lot of time tracking the various characters’ political manipulations. And it was then that I discovered my admiration for southeastern district commander (and later commissioner) Stan Valchek.

The creators play Valchek as a joke. He gets punched out by Prez, possibly the least macho character this side of Shardene or Namond Brice. In his most indelible image he sits hunched over his desk, gazing through an oversized magnifying glass, dusting for pointless fingerprints on a humiliating photograph—a Sherlock Holmes parody of police work that leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing. Even his beneficiary and patron, Tommy Carcetti, calls him a hack and asks Rawls to keep him from doing any lasting damage in his new sinecure. In the final episode, Sydnor tells Judge Phelan that Valchek doesn’t have any idea what police work is.

Other traits aren’t so comical. Valchek negotiates the power structures of a black-led police department in a majority-black city with consummate skill, but he can’t quite conceal his ingrained racism. The big tell, communicated with perfect subtlety and perfect clarity, comes in that scene in season 5 when he says his goodbyes to Mayor Carcetti but can’t bring himself to do more than nod at Norman Wilson. (In retrospect, Prez’s tragic history of being quick on the draw with black suspects makes a lot more sense after this moment; Valchek’s inability to acknowledge Norman tells us a lot about the culture he and Prez come from.)

In a show where loyalty is both a cherished value and a fatal Achilles heel, Valchek displays not a trace. Daniels saves his son-in-law three times, once talking him down from a murder charge and a possible suicide, and yet when Cedric begins his rapid ascent through the brass it’s Stan who warns Rawls that the young colonel is being groomed for something higher. Of course, by that point Valchek has more than severed his family ties to Prez, cutting him loose and making him Daniels’s problem. This utter lack of loyalty makes Valchek both a despicable character (I once called him “the old, white, Polish police version of De’Londa Brice”) and one of the most adept players of institutional politics on The Wire—two qualities that are hardly inconsistent.

On its largest scale, The Wire is about the erosion of the postwar industrial economy and the welfare state and their replacement by a globalized, postindustrial, postmodern capitalism that runs on no logic other than unrestrained self-interest. Valchek comes from one of the urban white ethnic constituencies that both built the welfare state and initiated its slow demolition: the guy is the very picture of a Reagan Democrat. He continues to advance his constituency’s political power, promoting Tommy Carcetti in an act of racial as well as district solidarity, but he destroys the last remnants of the southeastern district’s old economic base. (And opens the granary pier for development by his political ally Andy Krawcyzk.)

He turns his back on his family, his allies, and his community as he advances higher and higher in the police hierarchy. And yet I can’t help but like the guy.

Part of it is no doubt the accent. My extensive research on Wikipedia and Google hasn’t revealed much about the mysterious origins of actor Al Brown, but given that IMDB lists his first role as an uncredited spot on Homicide I’m willing to bet he’s a Baltimore local. He certainly sounds the part—his Bawlmer accent is better than any other white character’s, with the possible exception of Marine Unit officer Claude Diggins. In a show that prizes the local in the face of encroaching globalization, Stan Valchek is as local as it gets, and his accent exemplies everything that sets The Wire apart from the innumerable fantasyland versions of New York and Los Angeles that fill the airwaves.

But it’s not just the actor. Contrary to what every other character says about Stan’s competence, beneath the layers upon layers of vanity, self-promotion, and spite there beats the heart of a real police. He opens the investigation of the stevedores union and reopens the major crimes unit, salvaging the entire premise for the series after the scorched-earth ending of season 1. While he does so for the pettiest of reasons—destroying the union because he’s jealous over a chuch window—his initial hunch that something’s wrong is rooted in the kind of local knowledge The Wire characterizes as the foundation of all good police work. Stan is basically right: there’s no way in hell the stevedores should have the money to pay for that window.

His political instincts aren’t so bad for the city, either. He leaks the information that allows Carcetti to unseat Clarence Royce—a major improvement for Baltimore, no matter what we think of Carcetti’s failings. In his one and only scene in season 5, he again leaks the information that sinks Burrell and opens the door, albeit temporarily, for Daniels to institute some real reforms as deputy commissioner and later commissioner. If Stan Valchek fails upwards, he generally does so to the benefit of the police department and city hall (if not to the docks).

Unfortunately, the post of commissioner is likely to be a grade or two above Stan’s already questionable competence. Presumably he only gets the job because he’s willing to play along with the directive to juke the stats in advance of Carcetti’s gubernatorial campaign. (And because the city’s black constituency will be mollified with Nerese Campbell as the next mayor.) He might have given the major crimes unit a new lease on life when it served his purposes, but now that he has nowhere left to rise to he’s blocking Sydnor from doing real police work. He’ll basically be Ervin Burrell with a short temper and a beautiful ugly accent.

But on a show where people literally live and die on how they play the game of institutional politics, nobody plays it better than Stan Valchek.

This Is Your Brain on Television

This essay first appeared at Splice Today.
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“The greatest danger of all is when someone, or something controls your mind,” Wildboy explains sincerely at the tail end of Sid & Marty Krofft’s Saturday Morning Hits. He is translating for his semi-articulate friend/foster-parent Bigfoot, who, when Wildboy is done, shakes his shaggy head in agreement and declaims, “Ugh!”

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One Brain to Rule Them All

This essay first appeared on Splice Today.
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Americans in general, and American sit-coms in particular, take pride in being stupid, so no one is likely to be offended if I point out that the premise of The Big Bang Theory is somewhat dense. The show is based around the hilarious hijinks that result when a hot young waitress and aspiring actor named Penny moves into the apartment across the hall from a couple of nerdy physicists, Leonard and Sheldon. And…quick! What’s wrong with this picture?

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New Tricks

Hello!  You may remember me from such insightful posts as Visual Languages of Manga and Comics and, er, well, just that one, really.  You shall all be subject to me on a regular basis for a while, as Noah has asked me to be a monthly columnist.  At the moment, I’m not sure what direction I’m going to go with this, but I’ll play it by ear.

This month, as I’ve just come back from a vacation to the UK and am still jet-lagged, I’m going to just blather on a bit about a current favorite TV show of mine and why I think one of the main characters is the most fantastic female character I’ve seen in a long, long time.

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