2017 in review: Turbulent times put escapism on back burner
You cannot talk about the best television of 2017 without considering the context of the most important television of the year: television news, including cable, broadcast, fake and Fox. No matter what your pleasure, even if you never watch TV news, delivered information has been impossible to ignore. In a way, you might ask how any planned TV series could be more riveting than the frantic written screams of “Breaking News” that seem to flash hourly as broadcast and cable news clamor for us to look up from our iPhones. To be sure, there have been horrendous events to report this year: mass shootings at a Vegas music festival and a tiny Texas church, major natural disasters including Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, the fires of Northern and Southern California, the epidemic of sexual harassment charges that burns across politics, entertainment, business, publishing and even public radio and is reaching down to other levels of society. We have North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” taunting us by testing missiles that can reach the East Coast. And, of
course, there is politics, which has become a constant stream of exaggerations, surprises, lies, reversals, braggadocio, accusations and denials.
Much of this is direct fodder for such shows as “Saturday Night Live,” “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” “The Opposition With Jordan Klepper,” “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” and “The President Show,” and for late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert (rarely Fallon). Humor can be a leavening force, providing needed relief and refraction. But even our laughter is tentative these days, and the jokes just remind us of the chaos that seems to beset the country.
Were Marshall McLuhan still around, he might very well expand his enduring proclamation that “the medium is the message,” describing how the content platform inevitably becomes part of the information it delivers. Today, that statement would have to include social media, the ubiquitous tool for instantly propagating information, whether the information is true or not. The pervasiveness of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram has added even more pressure on television to be first with the news. At times, the pressure has prompted a rush to bad judgment and mistakes by legitimate news outlets. The difference between a legitimate news organization and the real fake news wallowers is that the the first group corrects its errors.
When McLuhan made his observation, television news was delivered at a specific time of the day and you had to turn the set on to watch it. It was 1967, and more than likely, that process was executed without benefit of a remote. Today, news, whose very definition has been altered by its method of delivery, potentially assaults us at every minute of the day and night. The message of the 21st century medium is that we are permanently caught in a swarming plague of information.
Habit has programmed us to suspend disbelief when it comes to television entertainment, but today we find ourselves increasingly challenged to suspend disbelief about a significant portion of delivered information. Some people believe Fox News as unquestioningly as others believe CNN. Some people believe tweets that red is blue and the sky is falling as passionately as others believe the Washington Post.
Suspension of disbelief has always been directly dependent on the persuasive skills of the messenger. But in our increasingly tribal society, groups of viewers come to some so-called news outlets preprogrammed to believe, searching only for confirmation of what they have made their minds up to believe. The journey is fueled by insecurity that someone may say they are wrong.
The most important media figures today include people like Rachel Maddow, Jake Tapper, Don Lemon, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah, Brian Stelter and, yes, Sean Hannity. Not to mention Donald Trump. Each of these people is a conversation starter and master of media. Some work tirelessly to sort truth from fiction, others work tirelessly to obscure the facts.
All of this — believe it — has an impact on the entertainment content of television. Since 9/11, television has frequently tapped into a rumbling sense of cultural unease with thrillers — long a staple of the medium, to be sure, but heightened in the new century by lingering shock from the attack on the World Trade Center, and fed regularly by real-life mass shootings, natural disasters and the constant feed of unexpected information. Series such as “Person of Interest,” “Homeland,” “The Americans,” “Westworld,” “The Leftovers,” “Godless” and others are intended to tap into our 21st century brand of wariness.
In turbulent times of the past, popular culture has often looked to give us ways out — escapism. We think of the fluffy movies of the Great Depression promising “We’re in the Money,” the flag-waving films of World War II urging us to keep the home fires burning, the irresistible schmaltz of Frank Capra reminding us “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
In the 1960s, television delighted in silly substance-less sitcoms like “Green Acres,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Bewitched” and “Gilligan’s Island,” or in other-worldly dramas like “Star Trek,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “The Twilight Zone” and “Mission Impossible.” The closest thing we have to that today are comic book dramas like “The Flash,” “Arrow,” “Gotham” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” To be sure, they are based on fantasy, but often with story lines that reflect or refract contemporary issues.
There is plenty of escapism on television today, but more often than not, the better content mirrors what is happening in the real world. We seem to need a tether to reality (actual or perceived) in fictional television — “House of Cards,” “Transparent,” “Orange Is the New Black” come immediately to mind. Who hasn’t watched “Designated Survivor” as Tom Kirkman takes command of the country after an unthinkable tragedy and wished Kiefer Sutherland hadn’t been born in London?
While there is a strong element of escapism in some comedies, such as “Kevin Can Wait,” “American Housewife” and “The Big Bang Theory,” other sitcoms try to find laughter in realistic situations. “Mom” focuses on a mother and daughter recovering from addiction, “Speechless” is about a teenager with cerebral palsy, “You’re the Worst” mines very contemporary romantic cynicism, “Better Things” is about a single mom trying to balance family and career. The closest thing we have to “Green Acres” today is the exceptionally good family comedy “The Middle,” which celebrates a loving and dysfunctional family of Midwesterners trying to make ends meet.
That isn’t to say that it’s challenging to enjoy television in the modern age. Far from it. But it does suggest that TV creators know that it’s virtually impossible to get us to stop thinking entirely about the real world, the uncertainty that always seems to be nipping at our heels. Reality bites —constantly and often unpredictably. And how can it not? Even while watching the most mindless television entertainment, most of us are checking our smartphones to learn what’s next. That’s the defining context of television entertainment in 2017.