I was quite charmed by NBC’s Bent, the sitcom about a stressed-out lawyer, Alex, (Amanda Peet) and her cutie of a contractor, Pete (David Walton), it’s inexplicably burning off to embarrassingly low ratings. Anything that stars Joey King and Jeffrey Tambor deserves at least some strong effort at promotion. And one thing stood out to me while watching the pilot and the second episode (NBC is showing them two at a time, a sad demonstration of the network’s eagerness to get rid of what should have been a solid fall season premiere). Pete’s character is a perfect example of a growing category of characters on television: the charming gambling addict.

It’s not as if gambling addicts are entirely new to television screens. Seeley Booth, the dapper FBI agent portrayed by David Boreanaz on Bones, has a serious gambling problem that the show has played to both dramatic and comedic effect. On How I Met Your Mother, Barney Stinson includes problem gambling among his other compulsive proclivities—he’s well-known enough in Atlantic City to have a regular gang of Asian gaming buddies. It was inevitable that Luck, HBO’s recently-canceled show about the world of horseracing, would have a gambler somewhere in the mix, as it did with Jerry, who can pick winners but inevitably lets his winnings slip through his fingers. Switched at Birth even has a teenage gambler.

Gambling addiction is a perfect fit for television in a number of ways. Gambling addicts don’t have to be kept out of bars, a common default social setting for shows with younger characters, particularly on multi-camera sitcoms. Other than stress, problem gambling doesn’t take an inherent physical toll or come with nasty side effects, so you don’t have to worry about compromising on Hollywood’s standards of attractiveness. And it’s a convenient, but not omnipresent dramatic device that can be deployed when you want to introduce risk or temptation into a character’s storyline.

But gambling addiction is also the perfect television flaw for a recession fueled in part by easy access to credit and a collective gamble that the economy would only continue to grow. These characters are the collective manifestation of a sense that we could beat the system, a sense that we now know is false and is prompting some serious reassessments. They’re charming and handsome (and interestingly, universally male)—in other words, they’re people we want to identify with, rather than condemn or push away, a balance that lets us assign them responsibility but also encourages us to stick with them through the process of managing their addictions. We can’t run away from the problems we’ve created for ourselves, and neither can they. And they make the point that all kinds of people can fall prey to the lure of easy wealth, whether they’re corporate honchos with unidentified functions like Barney, otherwise-upstanding FBI agents like Booth, or regular guys like Pete. It’s nice, but unrealistic, to believe that we all could have seen around corners and avoided trouble when trouble was presented in such a tempting package. Gambling addict characters don’t help us grapple with the larger financial system that benefitted from this collective delusion. But they can help us understand temptation, and the perpetual struggle not to fall for easy promises.

There’s been a lot of discussion prompted by Good Men Project founder Tom Matlack’s recent essay, in which he suggests that women want men to be more like them, and that manliness is a good thing. I’ll leave Amanda Marcotte to take on some of the larger assumptions in this piece (and to mount a defense as Matlack appears to denounce feminists and insist attacks on him are unfair because he’s a simple oral historian, or something), because I want to address this one: “So are dudes as a gender really assholes? If you look around in the press, on TV, and in popular culture you certainly might conclude that.” I’ve written in the past about some of the best shows about masculinity on television. Sure, it’s true — there are men who behave badly on television, but a lot of women who do same. But I also think that there are a lot of great manly male characters in pop culture right now. Among them:

1. With a bullet. Or with U.S. Army issued mustache trimmers. Parks and Recreation‘s Ron Swanson: Ron Swanson eats steak, drinks whiskey, smokes cigars, venerates John Wayne, reads Patrick O’Brian, hunts, camps, lays wreathes, lights torches, and teaches fourth-graders the importance of libertarianism. He also mentors women, loves mini-horses, shows up with hangover cures, self-sacrifices for the greater good, and dances with a fascinator on when he’s drunk. And he makes the point that none of these things are remotely inconsistent.

2. Because sometimes mentoring means you call the CIA on your mentee. And sometimes it means you show up with chicken soup. Homeland‘s Saul Berenson: Dude has one of the most serious beards on television. He blackmails the vice president of the United States in the name of justice. He talks around homegrown terrorists into giving up critically useful information. He responds to improper advances from his desperate mentee in an entirely proper fashion. He tries to woo back his estranged wife when she announces she’s leaving him to his workaholic tendencies, but ultimately respects her decision to go. Saul’s personal and professional courage are admirable. I’m going to be really sad if he turns out to be a mole.

3. Because sometimes being a good father means letting your daughter get mentored by Oprah. Up All Night‘s Kevin: Jason Lee’s had a bit of a wacky streak these past couple of years, but it’s turns out he’s exactly what this freshman comedy needed. As a contractor, he’s a nice counterbalance to the glitzy world new girlfriend Ava spends most of her time in without being an exploitable working-class fling. He spends Christmas with his ex-wife to create a smooth transition for his daughter. And he trusts and respects that Ava will find her way to a relationship with his daughter—and in expecting her to behave like a normal human, or as close as she’s capable of getting, helps her level up.

4. Cable executive. Tuxedo-wearer. Single father. 30 Rock‘s Jack Donaghy: Now, let’s be clear. Jack Donaghy has his flaws: a pathological hatred for his (admittedly dotty) mother, a disturbing level of comfort with turning children permanently orange, and a willingness to fake Dominican birth certificates to bolster Tracy Jordan’s struggling baseball team. But he loves smart women, whether he’s marrying first wife Bianca or talented cable-talker Avery Jessup or mentoring Liz Lemon; he’ll do anything for his father, include arranging a one-beneficiary all-star charity concert; and even if baby Libby is Canadian, you know that man will take all the care of her in the world.

5. The mismatched socks. The mad marksmanship skills. The naked omelet-making. Bones‘ Seeley Booth: I know Bones drives a lot of you crazy. But in the post-Bush years, and in this particular moment after Christopher Hitchens’ death, there’s something really valuable about throwing down a marker and declaring that while it may be manly to be able to use force, it’s morally correct to abhor killing even if you’re good at it. And even though David Boreanaz makes it look effortless, the character of Booth is all about the fact that manhood — whether in the form of resisting addiction, caring for a wayward brother, respecting and loving a strong but difficult woman, and holding on to your faith — is hard work. But it’s worth doing.

I’ve been writing a lot about the state of romantic comedy recently, and I’ll admit all of my thinking played into some anxiety I was feeling about the return of Bones. I know not everyone here loves the show or the character as much as I do, but I had a real fear that the show would decide that pregnancy would instantly transform one of the prickliest, most independent mainstream female television characters into a miraculously empathetic earth mother.

The thing about Bones is that a lot of the time, she’s kind of jerk, or refuses to behave in ways that would make people see her as a person and then gets frustrated when they’re hurt or angry with her. Sometimes, this can result in a breakthrough, as in the first-season episode where, goaded by a prosecutor who describes her as cold and unfeeling, she finds a way to explain how her extreme rationality is meant as a gesture of respect to victims. And sometimes, she just causes a mess, as when she tries to date two men at once, one for sex, and one for intellectual companionship, using technicalities to convince herself she’s not exclusive with either one and giving neither the respect of trying to engage with them on another level. But Bones has built a good life in part by making good use of her independence. She’s traveled and solved crimes around the world. She dates without anxiety about any artificial set of rules, which makes me more thankful than I can possibly say. When Sully asked her to quit her job and sail around the world with him, she said no because supporting him in pursuing his dream would have meant giving up hers entirely.

And so when she gets pregnant, it’s something she’s wanted, but the show also acknowledges that it comes with costs. When Angela told her on last night’s episode that she’d never be alone again, it was comforting, but it also means that Bones’ life is going to change radically, expanding in some ways that she can’t predict and being curtailed in others where she knows the concrete benefit. When she gets prickly about the prospect of giving up her apartment, it’s because we know that she has a really great apartment that’s a product of the money she’s earned and her travel. And when she gets all rigid and anthropological about Booth’s insistence that they get their own place rather than moving in to hers, it’s an illustration of a tough fact: that Bones may not really have the emotional skills to be in a long-term relationship yet, and she’s going to have to pick them up fairly quickly. That’s the basis for a really interesting and more-honest-than-usual romantic comedy.

Now that I’m charging through the first season of The X-Files, I’m finding that I can’t help but compare that show’s FBI doctor who did her residency in forensic medicine, Special Agent Dana Scully, with everybody’s favorite federally-employed forensic anthropologist, Temperance Brennan. They’re both fascinating — and at the beginning of each show, single — female scientists who go by their last names and with partners who can be more spiritual than rational. And it’s interesting to see how each show handles a very smart woman who’s in conflict both with an institutionalized bureaucracy and a competing worldview. So, this far in my viewing, how do Scully and Bones stack up?

Style

Scully may be the only woman in the universe who can make a ’90s pantsuit look good. Perfectly coiffed and preternaturally composed (Gillian Anderson was just 24 when she got the role), if Scully’s hair goes up, as it does when she’s investigating a creepy Arctic emotion-manipulating tapeworm, or her clothes get mussed, as they do on her first case with Mulder, you know something serious is going down. Rocks pretty seriously ’90s lace on a date she’s set up on. Her apartment, at least what we’ve seen of it, tends towards minimalist and has an enormous bathroom. Brennan, by contrast, opts for jeans and blazers, accented with funky jewelry she picks up on her world travels. Lots of smokey eye makeup, too. And lab coats. Scully may have to deal with weird things, but Brennan has to handle grosser ones. Her apartment is similarly full of artifacts from her travels, one of which her father used to murder a corrupt FBI agent; tribal music; and a refrigerator that’s occasionally rigged to explode.

Partners

Man, is Fox Mulder annoying. A conspiracy theorist since the disappearance of his sister during their childhood, Mulder’s perpetually in trouble with authority, hectors Scully to question her assumptions when he isn’t turning on the charm — and frustratingly, is almost always right. The show, at least what I’ve seen of it so far, seems like it might be better if he was wrong sometimes. It’s more interesting if the road to the truth is genuinely hidden, and if it takes some work to find it. And if there’s some actual tension between Mulder’s gonzo tendency to sneak onto crash sites, commission computer viruses, and sleep in alleys, and Scully’s tendency towards straightforward investigation. But despite the fact that he’s kind of irritating, I get the early sexual tension. That scene in the pilot where Scully has Mulder check her for alien probes that turn out to be mosquito bites? Total sparks-flying moment.

Seeley Booth, by contrast, believes in something he can’t prove, one way or another: God. But this hunky FBI agent’s quarrel with his partner isn’t really about the existence of another world. It’s about whether she’s cutting herself off from certain experiences. Over the course of the show, as Brennan and Booth grow closer together, she becomes more open to the idea that everyone has their own way to grace, and he learns that the way she sees the world is miraculous even if it’s not divine. And he learns more respect for scientific inquiry, while she becomes more open about her empathy for victims. Also, they’re going to have what one assumes will be a pretty adorable kid. That’s not an alien implant.
Read more

I’ve been so focused on this fall’s crop of television shows about women that I haven’t spent that much time checking out the roster of shows about How to Man Correctly. The always-excellent Linda Holmes at NPR makes a persuasive argument that for once, television is actually handling men worse than it’s handling women. So if you don’t want to watch How to be a Gentleman but do to think about masculinity, try one of these currently airing shows — or watch them with a new focus.

1. Parks and Recreation: I give this show infinite props for its awesome feminism, but it’s actually a stealthily terrific show about what it means to be a man. From Tom, who thinks the road to happiness lies through the achievement of a particular lifestyle; to Ben who’s trying to prove that he’s worthy of responsibility after a burst of teenage arrogance; to Andy’s maturation from unemployed lump to husband, the show is all about how to be a grown-up man without any resort to extreme violence or Pickup Artist-style womanizing. And that doesn’t even get us to the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness:

The only thing that even comes close is Jack Donaghy’s video for his unborn son. But on 30 Rock, Jack’s really the only man, so there isn’t much of a conversation about masculinity.

2. Breaking Bad: I sort of assume everyone here is watching Breaking Bad already, but in a way, it’s a perfect dramatic counterpoint to Parks and Recreation. Walter White’s journey from decent cancer victim to monstrously pathetic wannabe kingpin is fundamentally steered by a toxic conception of masculinity: that he should be willing to do everything to provide for his family. That rationale’s evolved from a motivation for Walt to cross a previously unthinkable line to an excuse for him to behave terribly. As Skyler, Walter’s wife told him this season, “someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”
Read more

A good post from Nikki, in response to some of my writing, saying that it’s not enough to want more women writing and directing television episodes. She writes:

If we suggest that increasing the number of women ON television might increase the number of women BEHIND television, thereby effecting a change in how sexist or feminist television shows might be, we excuse men from the process entirely, except as Upholders of the Status Quo. Set aside the question about women behind the scenes and focus on the men behind the scenes, who are definitely still in power in the media and it’s that power structure that should be held accountable for the current portrayal of women on TV.

Amen. I’m a pretty firm believer in the carrot-and-stick thing, though, because it’s relatively easy for male creators to clap their hands over their ears when they’re being criticized for not giving us wonderful, developed female characters and just not listen. And it’s much easier to get people to listen when you’re praising, and for other people to see that praise and think “I want that!” So without further ado and in no particular order, 10 fantastic female characters on television who were created by men.

1. Trixie, Deadwood, David Milch: I know this list isn’t in order, but if it was, I’d still put it at the top. Milch’s prostitute-turned-accountant, pimp’s-trick-turned-Jewish-businessman’s-girlfriend would still be at the top. We meet Trixie at the beginning of the show when she’s been accused of murder, and watch her help another woman beat a drug addiction even when it means defying her employer’s orders; seek out an education no one ever gave her so she can have more options in life; stand up for her friends when they get married and grieve for them when they bury their children; and develop a new relationship. She’s always making choices. And when she takes steps backwards, we understand why, at the gut level. She’s empowered, but the show doesn’t fall prey to the trap that strong female characters created by men often do — that women’s liberation is purely a matter of will, not circumstance.

2. Alice Morgan, Luther, Neil Cross: Alice, who enters the scene when she murders her parents, melts down the gun, and feeds the remaining parts to her dog, is a certified crazy person, but she’s not a victim. Her attraction to John Luther doesn’t make her a nymphomaniac. And her decision to work cases comes out of a clearly defined alternate morality and worldview. Rather than setting her up to be judged by the audience, she’s a compelling — and sometimes very scary — way to see the universe.
Read more

I wrote back in May that I thought one of the core problems with Bones is that the show doesn’t know how to do a Big Bad — more specifically, the kind of Big Bad that would require the extended efforts and concentration of a bunch of highly trained and highly paid crime-fightin’ federal scientists who, as we know, actually have other day jobs. So I’m glad to see that the show is at least going to give that sort of effort another shot with a case that is set up to bring out big core emotions in everyone’s favorite ruggedly handsome teddy bear, Seeley Booth.

This season, the main target will be a hacker who, as a form of misguided activism, shuts down Defense Department communications systems, putting American troops deployed overseas in danger. Obviously this will make our good friend Booth apoplectic, particularly at a time when he’s coping with the stresses of being a new dad. But it also seems like a cleverer-than-usual way to strip some of the complications out of the Bradley Manning case so we can debate some of the issues suggested by it in more usefully abstract terms. We can, and should, and are having debates about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, detention conditions, and speedy trials all inspired by what we’ve learned of Manning and of how he’s been treated since he was caught leaking material to WikiLeaks.

But I think it’s worthwhile for pop culture to do some thinking about the circumstances under which we think it’s OK for people to break or bend the law, and I hope Bones will provide a scenario for discussing that by setting up a villain who is convinced what he’s doing is worth the collateral damage, and has clear malign intent. Our cop shows routinely condone the idea that it’s OK to use violence against suspects as long as the people who are employing violence as a tactic are a) officers of the court, b) have pure intentions, c) will feel bad about it afterwards. Bones spends a lot of time justifying Booth’s use of violence to protect Brennan and other members of the lab, usually when he has to kill a suspect or threaten someone who has made Brennan less safe. Our pop culture also suggests that we’re okay with aberrant and aberrational behavior if it’s in defense or service of family, and that we’re excited to sympathize with anti-heroes who employ violence fairly regularly as long as they’re quirky or relatable in some other way.

But mainstream shows and movies, not surprisingly, tend to treat people who betray the government or employ violence against state actors as if they’re insane, misguided as to the tactics that will be effective, or at minimum, totally deluded in their political beliefs. I’m not saying I sympathize with the decisions that Bill Ayers made when he joined the Weather Underground, or that U.S. should have ended the war in Vietnam on the grounds that Mark Rudd was outraged by it to the point of insensibility (the war was wrong for much sounder reasons) but I do think it’s a little strange that there’s a reluctance to acknowledge that the American government can make decisions can make people feel panicked and powerless and urgent. It would be worthwhile to have slightly more than zero television shows and movies that actually took the time to explore the root motivations of people who do powerfully anti-social things. And more than that, good storytelling should have villains actually test your resolve to side with the hero.

Thanks to Faith in Public Life’s Nick Sementelli, who pointed me to this article which suggests there’s neurological evidence that disseminating positive images of minority groups can help rewire the brain’s shortcuts:

Neuroscientists have found, after strapping people to fMRI scans to measure changing levels of fear that images of out-groups elicit, that stereotypes are very malleable and capable of changing rapidly. Early theorists of stereotypes knew this all along, such as Walter Lipmann when he pointed out that stereotypes are the result of individuals conforming to situational demands and social customs, and not necessarily the result of deep hostilities held toward a particular “out-group.” Stereotyping is an emotional response to a perceived threat to the buildup of stress.

Importantly, neuroscientists have found that the introduction of positive images of “out-groups” does indeed lower levels of fear of the other, and it reforms the hardwired automatic processes. In one study conducted at a predominately white college, students were inundated with a flood of negative images of African Americans seen in ghettos and in gangs. Researchers found a spike in automatic stereotyping toward the entire category of African Americans. The researchers then introduced hundreds of positive images of African Americans seen at churches and in family and professional settings. The introduction of these images resulted in a lowering of fear and a significant drop in the level of stereotyping the students experienced toward African Americans on the whole.

While it’s one thing to show people a lot of images as part of a study, pop culture’s probably the quickest way to flood the average American’s zone with any kind of images and to show folks images (positive or negative) of people who are different from them in a sustained way. The piece cites the Muslim anthropologist on Bones, which has actually done a really nice job with its rotating crew of interns, of portraying not just Muslims, but African-Americans and working class folks as brilliant scientists. In any case, it’s nice to have scientific validation of the idea that pop culture can matter. Now, we just have to figure out how to use it in the causes of progressivism without sacrificing good stories.