h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The lizard and I are study ing Ally McBeal for an essay. Specifically how it uses music but that's beside the point here.

We've been watching quite a bit of it and we're still not certain of our reading of it and part of the problem there, I'm sure, is that we are not American.

I enjoy it and in some ways I identify with it but there are elements of the show that I am really undecided on.

It is overtly anti-feminist at times. It glorifies and reinforces ideas about love being the greatest good. The characters are self indulgent to an alarming degree and the way that mental illness is depicted is, um, odd.

Are there aspects to it that we, as brits aren't getting? Sorry to be so vague but I don't quite know what I think about it so any opinions on the show would be helpful.

N

Oooooooooh. Well.

Maybe the whole therapy thing is one that is somewhat alien to us. Living not only in Britain but in the backwoods would see to that. But I find that there is, oddly enough, rarely a barrier with imported American television. So maybe it is more that we lack experience in that area.
Anti-feminist. Well, that is just the problem with a reading, that it is only at times anti-feminist. Or maybe it interprets it differently. Having such a homogonised cast of female leads, it can't seem to help but have certain opinions. I don't quite know. I should point out that recently we have seen only season 1 of the show, and I haven't ever seen beyond season 3.
Um. 'Beautiful', heterosexual and thin. And a strange view, I have found, on who 'qualifies' for the ideal of love constructed in the show. Badly put, I know, but I'm not very clear right now.

We watched seaon 2 together when it was first shown on Channel 4, and I enjoyed it very much. I haven't seen them since, though, and can't remember them in enough detail to comment above the vague. I think that is the reason I'm having trouble commenting, as I know I don't really have enough information, and the 'tone' of a show can change. And as it is in the detail that we see these things, I'm feeling kind of wary.

Fatty

Might be easier to look at one aspect.

With the whole fantasy/therapy thing...um...I know that I am perculiarly biased but it sometimes seems that the characters are ridiculously self-indulgent. They have little self control and resist accepting responsibility for their actions. In many ways it seems to be a rejection of adulthood.

N

Rejection of adulthood? Possibly, but it still resonates.
The mental illness thing too; I know someone (not mentally ill but who has Tourettes) who identifies strongly with the central character and her flights of fantasy.
And me as well; Ally's thing is very like the way I see the world, spinning out of it in personal artificial realities when something catches your imagination. Or are they artificial, even?
All in all, it seems to me more true-to-life than a lot of stylised TV drama. OK, many of the characters are vacuous and vain, but that's life in a big-city professional environment too. And the way it slides between comedy and melodrama - authentic as well.
I'm talking about the early series, btw. Like pretty well all long-running TV series on both sides of the pond, it degenerated into self-parody by the end. The Dame Edna bit, for example...puke...
To receive these things as life, and thus as instructive, that would be to go too far. But to accept them as convincing, and therefore provocative entertainment - in those terms I would rate Ally McBeal among the better examples.

I've never seen Ally McBeal. Which network is it on?

And yes, before you ask, Fatty Lizard, I do spend a good deal of time under a rock.

H

Fox, Hyp

Not instructive. hmm. I'm not sure I'm reading you right but I think I disagree. Television falls back on the excuse of representation all too often. It (television) does undeniably represent a reality but that is never all it does. Television is instructive and on a mass scale that few other communicative mediums can match. Its propensity to reinforce the negative in society should not be brushed away or excused, because television shapes even as it depicts. Oh dear, I'm getting fuzzy on the point again. Right. I think television does and should depict the realities of peoples lives, people need to place themselves within the text, but it should balance that with an awareness of its capacity to shape the reality it is depicting.

Back to Ally. It is not so much the magic realism that I have a problem with. People do carry private worlds around with them and it is a good thing that that is being shown. The problem is precisely that I don't find it convincing, at least not as a depiction of a state of mind that is out of the ordinary and certainly not as a portrait of 'madness'.

I think the reason the show keeps slipping away from me and the reason that I can't quite make up my mind what I think about it, is that it can't make up its mind. Its message(s) are confused and contradictory most of the time. Again I suppose that is an accurate enough reflection of reality but it means that the conclusions that it reaches are ften half hearted or artificial. Sometimes it seems that they are only there because as a narrative it has to have points of closure and definition. I would be happier if it didn't do that. If it was brave enough to leave the answers out. Example: the episode where she first sees the baby and it ends with her dancing with it. That has the flavour of closure, it reduces all the unanswered questions and brushes over them with a message of stop trying to be rational. But that doesn't answer the qustions that were raised about the various layers of meaning that the 'halucination' represented. It is an artificial closure. Satisfying in narrative terms but it is still sleight of hand.

But that isn't the bit that really bugs me. It's the treatment of gender and relationships. I like that it shows some of the conflicts and contradictions of life in modern America. But, again, the show feels the need to paste artificial conclusions over the top of the questions raised. It also consistantly reinforces the norm; heterosexuality, two person relationships, the body beautiful... it challenges these social conventions (which is a good thing and better than nothing) but always goes for the restorative conclusion.

I suppose I feel let down by it. It tries to say important things then backs away uming and ahing.

N

I guess straight males are prone to a twisted view of lesbianism, but I'd have put the show in the vanguard of those that portrayed homosexuality (and particularly female homosexuality) as a normal lifestyle.

It certainly portrayed a (disproportionately?) high number of relationships and encounters suggestive of lesbianism. Are you saying it got them all wrong? You surely can't be saying that the lifestyle is under-represented.

The body-beautiful criticism is fair, of course - but this is American TV we're talking about. Physical perfection, artificial youth, improbable wealth and impossible wardrobes are unconvincing characteristics of the whole genre.

I dipped into Google just to make sure I wasn't getting my shows confused. No - here's a link that seems to fit my recollections...

http://www.afterellen.com/TV/allymcbeal.html

(Maybe it'll even be useful for fattylizard's project?)

and finally, <>. Very true, but I always take that to be part of its message. These are lawyers, remember. Ally and friends live in a world of advocacy, of black and white, where all kinds of doubt are summarily rejected. That Ally is wracked by doubt, and pushes herself towards conclusions that she then dodges, is the show's central irony, isn't it?

Wow! I should have been watching this one.

H

Suggestive certainly but there is not hide nor hair of any kind of gay lifestyle that I recognise. It's all bi-try chic and gloss. No, I'm probably being unfair and it is good for the mainstream though not nearly as daring as sex and the city. Again I can only apologise for having half formed opinions.

Thanks for the link. That might well be usefull for her. The essay is going to be about the uses of pop music in lipstick on your collar, buffy and Ally. Music is central to the fantasy elements of Ally and I think probably to its discourse on femininity and romance. We are slowly working our way towards actually having opinions on it and this is helping so thanks

'That Ally is wracked by doubt, and pushes herself towards conclusions that she then dodges, is the show's central irony, isn't it?'

Now that's an interesting idea. We'll think about that and get back to you!

It is certainly an interesting show to look at. lots to pick out. I think it does a good job on both friendship and competition between women.

N