‘I Like to Watch’ celebrates ‘termite’ television
Television critics are always quick to tell readers that this current Golden Age of Television — when TV shows have become bolder, riskier and more cinematic than the movies, finally elevating the long-dismissed medium as something that actually dispenses true art — began with “The Sopranos” in 1999. But as New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum immediately establishes in her new book, “I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution,” it was another program she adored that prepared her for the oh-so-bumpy road ahead.
“Instead, (‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’) spiked my way of thinking entirely, sending me stumbling along a new path,” Nussbaum writes.
Yes, it was Buffy and the Scooby Gang that sent her into a love affair with TV. But she also understood that despite being a critically acclaimed, cult comedy/drama/horror mishmash that took a lot more chances than other shows, it would never get the universal admiration Tony and his boys have gotten. “‘The Sopranos’ was the canonical stuff, the keeper,” Nussbaum later adds.
The most recent TV scribe to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism — the Los Angeles Times’ Mary McNamara won the prize the year before her, in 2015 — Nussbaum rounds up a peculiar yet most encapsulating selection of her New Yorker pieces for “Watch.” Oh, sure, she throws in a respectful appreciation for the mob drama she wrote for New York Magazine after its notorious finale aired. But, a couple of essays later, she once again gripes about how the show continues to be held in more high regard than that mischievous, liberating “Sex and the City,” which often aired right after “Sopranos.”
With “Watch,” Nussbaum virtually takes pride in acknowledging she’s a fan of — to use a term coined by critic Manny Farber — “termite art,” junk-food entertainment that slyly raises more questions and addresses more issues than the so-called Important Stuff. You won’t find any biting, erudite dissertations on “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones” or any other zeitgeisty series in the book (although she has done them in the past).
She would much rather dish about how the soapy “Scandal” is a far more delicious (and entertaining) takedown of Beltway bad behavior than “House of Cards,” or how telenovela sendup/salute
“Jane the Virgin” is too damn perfect to be constantly referred to as “a guilty pleasure.”
But Nussbaum isn’t completely into the cute stuff. (That’s established when she
slams the hell out of that award-winning darling “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”) In a section titled “In Praise of Sex and Violence,” she properly locates the artistic merit in more twisted fare. ( Just like me, she still can’t believe the amazingly sicko “Hannibal” landed on network television.)
Nussbaum knows how to find the pressing subtext buried within the pop piffle. She recognizes how ABC’s forever-under-appreciated family sitcom “The Middle” farcically shone a light on the angry, economically frustrated, working-class folk who would eventually put Trump in office, or how, even with all its zany, screwball machinations, Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is essentially about a rape survivor. (The same goes for a fellow Netflix show, the superhero noir “Marvel’s Jessica Jones,” which Nussbaum also discusses — especially since it reminds Nussbaum of her favorite “Buffy” season.)
Along with the New Yorker reviews, “Watch” has a collection of odds and ends: glowing tributes to Norman Lear and the late Joan Rivers; an exhaustively investigative look into integrated advertising on TV shows; and the obligatory Trump-sure-knows-how-towork-the-media hair-puller. She also includes lengthy profiles on three of the most powerful showrunners on TV. But — in a woke twist — they are a gay man (Ryan Murphy, “American Horror Story”), an African-American man (Kenya Barris, “black-ish”) and a woman ( Jenji Kohan, “Orange Is the New Black”).
There’s also a new essay from Nussbaum, “Confessions of the Human Shield,” a sprawling, rambling atonement of sorts, in which she basically reveals how she has spent years cutting problematic minds such as Woody Allen and Louis C.K. some slack because, well, they churned out amazing stuff.
Though that piece seems like an ill fit for a TV-column compilation (it’s less about TV and more about Nussbaum distancing herself from brilliant jerks), it ultimately works with the book’s stealthy, pro-feminine attitude. At the risk of sounding like a cisgender, misogynistic scuzzbucket, it can’t be denied that most of the shows Nussbaum champions in “Watch” either star women playing strong characters, created/written/produced/directed by women and/or have a female-centric fanbase. There are moments in the book when she simply lists the ladies — or the shows they’re involved with — who are doing smart, daring, provocative things behind and/or in front of the camera. (Both Lena Dunham and her HBO millennial fest “Girls” get myriad shout-outs.)
In the cluttered embarrassment of riches that is Peak TV, Nussbaum lets it be known that the women come with the greatness just as frequently as the guys, sometimes even more so. So, though there’s nothing wrong with appreciating all the Tonys out there (TV is still a place where antiheroes are treated by fans like bad-boy rock stars), just remember there will always be some Buffys around, ready to slay.