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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Boardwalk Empire: the show you're supposed to love


Boardwalk Empire is hard to want to write about. This is because it's obviously one of those lauded, "good" shows...but I am not even close to obsessing about it. The actors are great, totally solid - although in period dress Michael Pitt's resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic grows tenfold - and the directing and set design and beautiful, but I have not found myself forming connections to any of the characters. Maybe it's just all the exposition that's necessary in the first two episodes, but I've now seen over two hours of Boardwalk Empire without feeling any emotional connection - and that just doesn't feel right.



It's the show that I'm supposed to love, the one bright star in a year of weak series premieres. And I do like it; it's enjoyable to watch. Yet...there's something a little empty about it. With The Sopranos, the fictional characters in a real-world setting allowed the writers to really delve into disparate human beings and show their struggles, their secrets, their deepest conflicts. On Boardwalk Empire, it feels like there's constantly someone standing just off-screen, waving a sign to remind you that This Actually Happened and These Are Real People. After the first thrill of seeing a young Al Capone, I was left wanting more of a sense of Jimmy's reaction to him than simply more, Look! It's Al Capone - isn't that cool!

And maybe it's just me, but I can't keep all of these white dudes in tuxedos straight. They showed somebody killing Big Whoever From Chicago in a way that I knew I was expected to know who the killer was. I did not. I actually have great facial recognition, but on Boardwalk Empire everybody looks the same - even the women all have a similar styling, except for whatshername with the ribbon who is apparently so alluring in her hopeless- and helplessness that all these ugly old white dudes fall immediately in love with her or some shit. Which brings me to...

The portrayal of women and black people is problematic at best. I'm tired of old white guys making historical movies/tv shows and then saying, "Oh, we wanted to include women/minorities, but they just weren't around/in power/being interesting." Well, Boardwalk Empire has women and black people, but the focus never lingers on them for long, and when it does it simply serves to further demonstrate that white men like everybody else to be weak and subservient. Take the scene where that one old white dude (the mayor?) is a total asshole and rings his bell obnoxiously and yells in order to get his black female servant in the room to ask her a political question that she does not know the answer to. This scene is there so that we, the 21st century viewer, can watch it and go, Oh, things were so bad back then. Weren't people terrible? when really racism just takes a different form these days (Fox News). Things are still pretty terrible, yo. If you just point out the problem without making any effort to delve deeper into the story, it's not poignant or progressive, it's just gross. After reading the novel The Help (you should all read it, it is SO GOOD), which is currently being made into a movie with an awesome cast, it's clear any argument against making historical films/tv centered around minority characters is complete bullshit. There is plenty of interesting history out there that doesn't center around white privilege - Hollywood is just too racist to do anything about it, so instead we get old white men making a show about other old white men, with occasional acknowledgments that there were blacks around being treated terribly. I love Mad Men, but its biggest weakness is the lack of an African-American perspective. There is no good reason why Carla couldn't be a regular cast member with her own fleshed-out story, and we would get such insight and diverse views from it. However, at least Mad Men has some of the best and most fully realized female characters ever, while Boardwalk Empire has flappers who give in to fat white men who guilt them into handjobs.

In addition to all of that, there's also the little issue of HBO. The network hasn't had a big hit for a while, and though I love Bored To Death and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, neither of them are cultural phenomenons. HBO is pushing very, very hard to make Boardwalk Empire into The Show To Watch, and that instinctively makes me want to not watch it. Hype is a big turn-off for me because I like to be able to form my own opinions without being told what is good. What's good about Boardwalk Empire is the acting and the re-creation of Atlantic City in 1920; whether those two things can salvage the oblivious men, one-dimensional women, and stereotypical minority representations remains to be seen. I'll be watching, but with a highly critical eye.

Images via Telegraph, HBO

2 comments:

  1. Nice. I think that, unlike AMC who kind of under-hyped Mad Men at the start, HBO is doing itself a disservice.

    Also, side note, did you actually see Time Mag's ass kissy article about Jonathan Franzen? Write about it for me please! I know it's not TV.

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  2. I did not. Where would I get a copy of Time Magazine? If you have a link, send it. But I do think that all the Jonathan Franzen hype is bullshit, and that anyone who was surprised that Oprah picked a well-established, critically-regarded white male author is a sap. Have you read The Help? I don't care if you don't have time, MAKE TIME, you will LOVE IT. Talk about an American novel, goddamn.

    PS: at school today I heard a choir class singing "God Bless America" and almost cried in outrage. The married lesbian I work with was totally with me. You would like her.

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