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author_by_night) wrote2021-02-08 09:48 am
author_by_night) wrote2021-02-08 09:48 am
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Schitt's Creek: The Comedy We All Missed
Some spoilers for Schitt's Creek below.
At this point in 2021, almost everyone and their brother has seen Schitt's Creek. If they haven't, they usually at least know the premise. The Rose family has become part of the culture, and I have to say, I can't remember the last time a comedy has.
Certainly comedies haven't gone away entirely. However, the big shows everyone seems to watch have tended to be dramas and dramedies. The shift may have begun with The Sopranos in the early 00's, where we have a drama with a very complicated, unsympathetic character. Then we had Mad Men, which not everyone watched but certainly enough that you can safely reference it at the water cooler. Breaking Bad.
Comedies themselves seemed to be more of a rarity, with dramedies becoming the preferred medium. This was certainly true for me. While I enjoyed straight comedies, I fell in love with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place. TGP is lighter than CXG in mood, but when you actually dig deeper, it's a pretty dark show. If it were played as a drama, it would be a pretty gritty and grim drama, quite frankly. CXG begins as a dramedy with a visible undercurrent beneath the comedy, but begins to sink deeper into the darkness as we fully acknowledge that the main character has significant mental health issues. This was always evident - even before Rebecca's diagnosis, it was clear to me that she was clearly struggling big time, which made me root for her despite her making choices I wouldn't have made - after all, that can make or break a character. I'll get into when it does and doesn't work (at least for me) some other time.
So this brings us to Schitt's Creek. Although it aired in 2015, it wasn't until the last year and a half or so when more and more people started watching it. Being the clueless naysayer I tend to be with things I end up loving (Buffy and Harry Potter being two examples), my response was "meh." I watched the first episode and it was a bunch of rich people stranded at a motel. It just didn't do it for me. It took a lot of convincing for me to give the show another shot, but I did, and I was hooked. So is almost everyone I know.
I think part of it is the timing. As times in many places (such as the US) are harder than they were even a few years ago, we've started to crave escapism. I think the popularity of grittier dramedies and bloody dramas were a sign of darkening times. But by 2019, people were growing wearier, and 2020 was a shit show. Or shall I say, Schitt Show?
Many have pointed out that Schitt's Creek presents a sort of utopia. David and Patrick can be openly queer without ever seeming to face adversity from it. The closest we get is when Patrick's parents don't know he's gay, and Johnny accidentally outs them. Even then, the "adversity" simply is that they didn't know. While David initially expects them to be homophobic, they reveal they're not upset that he's gay, but that he felt he couldn't tell them. ("I thought this was about to get very dark," David says.) And even though you might expect a small, rural town to be conservative, this never seems to present any problems. Patrick serenades David at their store's opening, and the only one batting eyes is Moira - in a good way, giving a knowing smile to her son as if to say "he's a keeper."
Privilege is also dealt with without any loud fanfare. We definitely see it - whether it's Johnny realizing he can't buy his son the wedding he once dreamed of, or simple off-the-cuff comments the Roses make, taking their past lives for granted in the company of people who didn't spend every summer in the Hamptons. Still, no one is ever portrayed as suffering, and any snobbery we see is generally tame. While there's some dark humor - Alexis had a terrifying teen/early twenty life - it's glossed over as quickly as it's touched on.
Some could criticize the show for painting too bright a picture, for a world that's not like ours at all. And I would honestly understand that. However, maybe we need to see what the world could be. Maybe we need to see a world where we'll assume there's no pandemic awaiting our characters, where privilege is definitely present but not something that uplifts some and crushes others, where distant families mend and come together in times of strife as opposed to falling further apart. Reality's on overload right now; it's nice to have not only an escape, but an escape that offers something better than what we currently have.
I'm sorry I snubbed Schitt's Creek at first, but I'm also very glad I found it. It's been a ray of sunshine, and I only wish I had more.
On that note, anyone have any fanfic recs?
At this point in 2021, almost everyone and their brother has seen Schitt's Creek. If they haven't, they usually at least know the premise. The Rose family has become part of the culture, and I have to say, I can't remember the last time a comedy has.
Certainly comedies haven't gone away entirely. However, the big shows everyone seems to watch have tended to be dramas and dramedies. The shift may have begun with The Sopranos in the early 00's, where we have a drama with a very complicated, unsympathetic character. Then we had Mad Men, which not everyone watched but certainly enough that you can safely reference it at the water cooler. Breaking Bad.
Comedies themselves seemed to be more of a rarity, with dramedies becoming the preferred medium. This was certainly true for me. While I enjoyed straight comedies, I fell in love with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place. TGP is lighter than CXG in mood, but when you actually dig deeper, it's a pretty dark show. If it were played as a drama, it would be a pretty gritty and grim drama, quite frankly. CXG begins as a dramedy with a visible undercurrent beneath the comedy, but begins to sink deeper into the darkness as we fully acknowledge that the main character has significant mental health issues. This was always evident - even before Rebecca's diagnosis, it was clear to me that she was clearly struggling big time, which made me root for her despite her making choices I wouldn't have made - after all, that can make or break a character. I'll get into when it does and doesn't work (at least for me) some other time.
So this brings us to Schitt's Creek. Although it aired in 2015, it wasn't until the last year and a half or so when more and more people started watching it. Being the clueless naysayer I tend to be with things I end up loving (Buffy and Harry Potter being two examples), my response was "meh." I watched the first episode and it was a bunch of rich people stranded at a motel. It just didn't do it for me. It took a lot of convincing for me to give the show another shot, but I did, and I was hooked. So is almost everyone I know.
I think part of it is the timing. As times in many places (such as the US) are harder than they were even a few years ago, we've started to crave escapism. I think the popularity of grittier dramedies and bloody dramas were a sign of darkening times. But by 2019, people were growing wearier, and 2020 was a shit show. Or shall I say, Schitt Show?
Many have pointed out that Schitt's Creek presents a sort of utopia. David and Patrick can be openly queer without ever seeming to face adversity from it. The closest we get is when Patrick's parents don't know he's gay, and Johnny accidentally outs them. Even then, the "adversity" simply is that they didn't know. While David initially expects them to be homophobic, they reveal they're not upset that he's gay, but that he felt he couldn't tell them. ("I thought this was about to get very dark," David says.) And even though you might expect a small, rural town to be conservative, this never seems to present any problems. Patrick serenades David at their store's opening, and the only one batting eyes is Moira - in a good way, giving a knowing smile to her son as if to say "he's a keeper."
Privilege is also dealt with without any loud fanfare. We definitely see it - whether it's Johnny realizing he can't buy his son the wedding he once dreamed of, or simple off-the-cuff comments the Roses make, taking their past lives for granted in the company of people who didn't spend every summer in the Hamptons. Still, no one is ever portrayed as suffering, and any snobbery we see is generally tame. While there's some dark humor - Alexis had a terrifying teen/early twenty life - it's glossed over as quickly as it's touched on.
Some could criticize the show for painting too bright a picture, for a world that's not like ours at all. And I would honestly understand that. However, maybe we need to see what the world could be. Maybe we need to see a world where we'll assume there's no pandemic awaiting our characters, where privilege is definitely present but not something that uplifts some and crushes others, where distant families mend and come together in times of strife as opposed to falling further apart. Reality's on overload right now; it's nice to have not only an escape, but an escape that offers something better than what we currently have.
I'm sorry I snubbed Schitt's Creek at first, but I'm also very glad I found it. It's been a ray of sunshine, and I only wish I had more.
On that note, anyone have any fanfic recs?