The growing childishness of American adults
When I was a child, I spake as a child but when I became an adult, I put away childish things. I vote, I no longer spill my milk, I’m boring. You know, the foundational elements of adulthood. This is a good thing.
So I write in frozen horror about the latest instalment in the ongoing cultural mindset that is American childishness. Canadians, watch and beware. Columnists too often use the word “we” so I want to caution readers that Canadians and Americans are different. Canadians grow up.
Let me tell you about Preschool Mastermind, a daycare for adults in Brooklyn, N.Y. It is not, as I had thought, an April Fool’s joke or even a fetish den but an actual thing. Tall, hairy, wrinkled Americans — I’m assuming they have jobs because you can’t get student loans for kindergarten — pay $1,000 to recreate their happiest times, spending their days as 4year-olds: fingerpainting, show-and-telling, playing musical chairs, napping with a blankie and a Fig Newton.
Yes, they have Parents’ Day. I assume the parents erupt with rage and head straight to a lawyer’s office for a brisk disinheriting.
When I look at the manic grins in the class photo, I think of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the new Netflix sitcom from Tina Fey that is as devastating an attack on childishness as I have ever seen. NBC, mainstream and fading, refused the show; Netflix grabbed it.
Kimmy is one of the Indiana “molewomen,” kidnapped by a doomsday cult and kept underground for 16 years. Post-escape, she is determined to thrive. She pastes a painfully huge smile on her face at all times. Every remark is an exclamation, every event is “awesome” or “incredible.” Kimmy has a grown-up body and a teenage mind.
Fey’s stroke of genius — she’s the comedian who has always been the adult in the room — is Kimmy’s reflection of the national cluelessness. You see infancy in its politics (relentless folksiness, speeches for simpletons), dress ( jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps), cuisine (food in cutesy rounded shapes), identity (life tracked on Facebook, with high school being the peak), and pop culture (movies about comic book heroes). Amazon.com’s top-selling title is a colouring book for adults.
The worst symptom of infantilism is girly speak. The default presentation of American women is wild big-eyed enthusiasm, exhausting positivity and the jargon of therapy. I’ve just read Meghan Daum’s essay collection, Unspeakable, much praised in certain circles. It’s as if Kimmy had written a book. Breathy, saccharine and melodramatic, Daum has never let a pinprick go unregistered.
“My heart, back then, stayed in one piece only because, as bursting with anticipation as it was, it had not yet been strained by nostalgia,” writes Daum. Grow up, Daum. Get a grip. Daum has written a book for old female children, and I am unnerved.
It’s fascinating to see foreigners step onto this huge land mass of sweet violent ingenuousness and try to navigate. Take whistleblower Edward Snowden. Millions of Americans — plus a small chic group of Canadians — watched political satirist John Oliver interview Snowden in Moscow this week. The interview, on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, was a masterpiece of cultural handling.
Oliver, a smart Brit, interviewed Snowden, an equally smart American, about massive intrusive U.S. government surveillance of citizens who are too politically disengaged to care. He took a camera to Times Square and asked people who “Edward Snowden” was. Not a single person knew. Oliver then asked these same citizens if it was OK for the NSA to store photos of their genitals. At this, these good people flared up and said, no it was absolutely not OK. Times Square was flowing with indignation. This is how you get toddlers upset; you mention swimsuit areas.
“I guess I never thought about putting it in the context of your junk,” Snowden said. “Edward,” Oliver said, “if the American people understood this (NSA spying), they would be absolutely horrified.”
The hardest thing to get right in any kind of journalism is tone. You have to find a way to alert and charm the audience you seek. I just want my slice of a snarky Toronto demographic — so I’m happy to mock American toddlers — but Oliver has to charm clever Americans, abuse the gormless ones, win the attention of both, and assist the cause of Snowden, who probably won’t live long enough to object either way.
Oliver — and to some extent Snowden — was calling American kids in from recess. He did it winningly and beautifully. He got the tone just right.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (starring Ellie Kemper) is a devastating attack on U.S. childishness