something about Tom Perrotta’s "Mrs. Fletcher"

Tom Perrotta excels at combining middle-class drama and satire. His stories, including Mrs. Fletcher, sprout from small sagas in American suburbs. The titular character is Eve, a fifty-something divorcée and mother of an entitled, popular, teenaged son named Brendan. Brendan is starting college, and Eve is starting life in an empty nest. The coming year defies expectations because it is Eve rather than Brendan who begins to dabble and explore. Perrotta's easily digestible novel sets up tension between a mature woman starting a new chapter in her life and her immature son's struggle in a new environment in which he is no longer at center. This is an enjoyable story of contemporary sexual politics.


Notes:

• Mrs. Fletcher was published in 2017. The book was adapted recently into an HBO series.
• Here is a fair review in The Washington Post.

something about the Leave It to Beaver episode, "Wally's Election"

In the Leave It to Beaver episode, "Wally's Election," a reluctant Wally Cleaver is nominated to run for sophomore class president against the oafish school bully, Lumpy Rutherford. Wally's and Lumpy's fathers, Ward and Fred, respectively, push their sons to campaign aggressively. The fathers are motivated, it turns out, by their own selfish ambitions. The episode's moral comes during Ward's confession to his sons in the final act.

Ward Cleaver: Oh, I guess its just all part of being a father, Beaver. Your boy makes the football team and you visualize him scoring touchdowns all over the place. He gets an A in mathematics, and you see him as an atomic scientist landing on the moon. Maybe you even picture him marrying the banker's daughter.

Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver: Gee, dad. I thought only kids had goofy dreams like that.

Ward: No, Beaver. Nope. Parents have their share, too. You see, as you grow older, you come to realize that some of the ambitions and dreams you had are just not going to come true. So, you begin to dream through your children.

Wally Cleaver: You mean Mr. Rutherford dreams through Lumpy?

Ward: Of course he does. I don't guess there's a father around anywhere who doesn't want things to be a little better for his children than they were for him.

When actor Hugh Beaumont, as Ward, says, "you come to realize that some of the ambitions and dreams you had are just not going to come true," Beaumont's delivery includes a slight, magnificent quiver. It is an efficient but effective line read—not a surprise from the ultimate and classic TV dad-actor.


Note: "Wally's Election" was the 19th episode of season 3 of the famous American TV series, Leave It to Beaver. It aired 6 February 1960.

about a softie, a nancy boy

At the airport. This 40-year-old dad-guy in khakis drank half a beer and now he's acting like he's a man. He pulled from his luggage a little Nerf football, dropped back, and threw it toward his kids. The ball fluttered and dropped about three feet in front of his kids' toes.

In those moments, I saw him lower his inhibitions some. Fun dad came out to play for a while.

He started smiling as the idea popped into his head. "I'm gonna seize this moment and really connect with my son in front of all these people." And then to not connect on the play. Broken up by his own fear of letting go of that little, fluorescent softie; letting go too soon, not following through. Or holding on too long, as with any dream he's ever had. Hit by reality after the play was called dead. The pass falls short. He falls short.

It was the beer's fault. His wife has already discussed this with him. You can tell that she's already drawing up a demeaning play to focus his attention once again. Sportsman. Dreamer. Alcoholic. Beautiful.

Stretching out, trying to break the plane. At the airport. Secretly hoping this plane is the one that finally crashes.


Note: Co-written by my best bud.

Glitzy craps all over the dinner table

The TV show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" strings together footage of a lower-class family in the Southern state of Georgia, US. These are rednecks and white trash. The youngest daughter, a frequent child beauty pageant contestant, and her the mother are the center of attention; altogether, the family shown on TV is devoid of manners nearly to the point of being uncivilized. I've only watched maybe 10 minutes of this show but enjoy reading the internet/news articles about it, which are mostly negative. The negativity is partly snobbery but, more so, I think it's evidence of the dominant truth-making discourses in the culture.

The main criticisms run along the following lines:

• The family is being exploited (which underscores the lack of opportunity in this country)

• The show rewards bad behavior (such as laziness, poor health, and having kids by multiple fathers starting at a young age)

• The show ridicules the family (and, by extension, people like them)

The exploitation claim provokes an interesting debate, but it first assumes the other critiques are valid. The other criticisms--I've seen many variants of them--spur from the public assumption and promotion of medical, psychological, and economic discourses that generate knowledge about life. The criticism is drawn from that knowledge: the family's steady diet of junk food will sicken them, reduce their quality and quantity of life, and ultimately create costs to be absorbed by the rest of the population; the sudden fame and the emphasis on pageantry, the patriarchal confusion, and the laissez-faire parenting will prove emotionally crippling. All this might bear out for various reasons, but the widespread condemnation of the show for these reasons shows the power of these discourses in our culture. Society assumes these discourses and polices itself with their truths. It says, "Do not reward this behavior! Society must be defended!"

Notes:

1. Critics who've defended the show use the same discourses, saying the family's emotional health is OK because they are in on the joke and seem like they are happy and have decent familial relationships, etc.

2. Other critics have derided the show's quality, slamming it because it appeals to the lowest common denominator. This judgement, when pursued to its ends, justifies itself in the same discourses.

3. A show, especially one on a cable channel like TLC, doesn't need that many viewers to be a "hit". The standards for calling a show a hit have plummeted the last 20 years.

4. One well-written critique is this one from the AV Club, of which the highlight for me is the following:

We’re meant to laugh at the poor manners that Alana and her sister Pumpkin exhibit when an etiquette teacher comes to help make them more ladylike. It’s not the pair failing to transform into princesses after one session that is depressing. It’s that the show presents even the very idea of them being able to reach a point at which not farting at the table is even possible as a totally improbable idea.

Ah, the coup d'etat of the family's dignity. Now, turn that around: when we train a monkey to roller-skate, we're meant to laugh at the monkey on roller-skates. There's no joke when the animal is untrainable. But, when these girls shrug off attempts to train them in formal behavior, it's a disgrace. (And AV Club comments suck.)

5. The author of the Gawker article, "The Perfect Level of Fame", makes the case that the show and celebrity attached haven't seem to hurt the family, at least. But what gives this piece distinction is the following comment from maryannmom:

• Wow. This is a really long article. I started with the first couple paragraphs, then started skimming, then scrolled to see how much more there was, then read the comments, which were disappointing. So I guess I never will no exactly what the Honey BooBoo phenomenon is, but then this cultural stuff is so depressing, it is starting to make me feel kinda unibomberish, in that hide-yourself-in-a-cabin-without-electricity-kind of way. Feel me?

Some of this person's other comments on Gawker articles:

• Am I evil for hating on those Pinkett-Smiths? And being super annoyed by their tiny starlet baby fake rapper kids?

• I agree. The pressure! You must have to have a thick skin to take all those second guesses and negative opinions and comments. I loved this dress for being feminine. pretty and sexy and showed off her beautiful shoulders and arms. (girl crush!). Yeah, it blows that a guy just gets a suit and is done, but then that is why women are so much cooler. I just saw the Democratic women of the Senate at the DNC and it as great that they had a variety of outfits, sizes, hair and make up. Vive la difference (of style)!

6. These articles from Reality Blurred and Hollywood Reporter say the show isn't funny while making fun of the family the show is about. The Hollywood Reporter article has the line, "Glitzy craps all over the dinner table".

About the TV show "Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963)

Compared to "grittier", more recent television shows like Norman Lear's work in the 1970's and early "Rosanne", "Leave It to Beaver" is often critically dismissed for three reasons: (1) it's bourgeoisie idealism, a show (often seen as representative of other shows of the era) whose producers were either too disconnected or too disinterested to deal with darker, more important themes and problems; (2) the parenting it portrayed set too high a bar for those in the real-life business of parenting; (3) it oversimplified life with cut-and-dried narrative archs. (An example of this last criticism lies in the IMDB plot summary for the show: "Unlike real life, these situations are always easily resolved to the satisfaction of all involved and the Beaver gets off with a few stern moralistic words of parental advice.")

After watching the show the last several weeks, these critical write-offs seem way too hasty.

That the setting is a middle class suburb, that Ward and June can make it look pretty easy, and that problems arise and see resolution within the episode are all arguable enough. But none of these issues are unique to "Leave It to Beaver" or shows of its era. Moreover, consider the show's context: first, the middle class was booming then, so upward mobility was real (more so than now); second, the show was aimed at families, so its arch and content were built accordingly.

So those criticisms are a little unfair. Worse, they are conventional. They are conversation enders that cut off any real consideration of the show's merits. And it definitely had merits.

It wasn't like Beaver would just drop his lollipop in the mud and learn to be careful. No, the conflicts and themes could be substantial. Beaver might learn about the nature of trust--that trust is often necessary, that trust can be betrayed, and that trust can redeem the trusted and the trustee. He might learn about making choices by feeling regret. He might learn about responsibility after being disappointed or disappointing others. He might learn that there can be more to a person than the impression they make. And there were episodes in which he saw and met people outside his privileged suburban middle class world. Jealousy, money, status, honesty, popularity, peer pressure--all covered, and not always "to the satisfaction of all involved". In some episodes it was Ward and June whose eyes were opened.

Not every episode hit a home run but "Leave It to Beaver" deserves way more credit than it usually gets.

Note:

• In one stellar episode called "Eddie Spends the Night", Eddie Haskel, whose parents are out of town, is invited to stay at the Cleavers. That evening he and Wally fight and in protest Eddie goes home to an empty house. At first the Cleavers are relieved, but soon Ward and June remember their responsibility and lobby Wally to re-invite Eddie. Wally finds Eddie home alone and evidently a little scared of being by himself, though he tries not to show it. After first pretending (for Wally's benefit) to demand his father allow him to return, Eddie rejoins Wally. The next day Eddie confesses to Beaver that he hates being alone because, even though he acts like a big shot all the time, he can't pretend to himself that he's as confident and popular as he wants to be.