This, from a New York Times piece on the comedy boom, seems somewhat off to me:

And then there’s the economy. Mr. Lee said it was a mistake to tie trends too simply to social developments, but in this case, it was inevitable to think of “things like the 1930s and screwball comedies.”

Indeed, socio-economic conditions are being widely credited. Mr. Lorre, who had hits before and after the economy tanked, said, “Comedy thrives during economic downturns. You know, if you’ve had a bad day, laughter is a better remedy than watching a coroner pick shrapnel out of some poor guy’s private parts.”

Ms. Salke said, “It’s all part of stress level.” She said people might look to comedy because they “don’t want to think too hard.” She added, “You’re probably sitting around the table talking about how you’re going to afford the tuition, or you’re not going to have a vacation, or you can’t afford a divorce. You need an escape from that.”

Lorre’s core comedy, the goofy, escapist Two and a Half Men, has seen its ratings fall from 28 million in this year’s premiere to 15 million for the last episode. And a lot of the comedies that are resonating — or, in an anemic ratings season, at least have gotten pickups — tap directly into contemporary issues if not into anxieties, whether it’s the class politics of 2 Broke Girls, the biggest new comedy of the fall, the post-college roommate scenario of New Girl, or the domestic trials of Up All Night and Whitney. Even Modern Family, cited for its excellence as one of the causes of the comedy resurgence, is nodding to the zeitgeist by having Claire Dunphy run for town council.

I do think it’s true that television has generally become more about providing aspirational models to audiences rather than reflections of their lived experiences. But even though that’s the case, the characters in popular comedies today still have problems that bear some small relation to those faced by their audiences, even if the consequences are cushioned by wealth or the scale is different — Jay’s business having trouble on Modern Family, for example, probably wouldn’t mean that his family gets foreclosed on. These are not the problems of, say, a con woman and a beer heir who meet cute on a cruise ship in The Lady Eve, or a professor and a gang moll in Ball of Fire, challenges that might be fun to watch but none of us could ever possibly have. We are not ignoring our mortgages to chase a leopard through the suburbs. Comedy characters today may be somewhat more secure than comedy watchers, but they’re helping us mediate the challenges of contemporary life, not escape them entirely.

We’ve got no fewer than four women running for public office at all levels of government on network television this year — Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, Britney S. Pierce and Sue Sylvester on Glee, and Claire Dunphy on Modern Family — and two shows where women are at the core of big policy discussions — Carrie on Homeland and Anna on A Gifted Man. The awesome Chloe Angyal and I got together to discuss them all on this week’s Bloggingheads:

One thing we discussed that I think is interesting about Homeland is that by putting a woman in the role of violating other people’s civil liberties and by going to far in the war on terror, the show establishes an interesting cross-gender complicity. It isn’t just men who did this, it isn’t just the military. It’s all of us. Carrie may be feminine and fragile (and she has the best wardrobe of a CIA agent I have ever seen, I would die for her closet), but she’s entirely capable of bugging a man’s house and watching him sleep with his wife.

I wish I was as optimistic as Erik Kain about the possibility of Mitch and Cam tying the knot on-camera in Modern Family:

You see, I’m almost positive that during the show we’ll see the couple get officially, legally hitched. I’m not sure if this will follow the return of gay marriage to California, or whether they’ll tie the knot-tying into the show in some other way, but I do think we’ll get the wedding. The act of getting married on the show would be far more powerful and emotionally moving than having Mitch and Cam married from the outset. Hell, I got all teary in the “Hawaii” episode when Phil threw Claire the surprise second-wedding.

I could be wrong, of course, but a wedding makes for great television. A gay wedding on Modern Family would not only be fantastic TV, it would be a really great moment for gay rights, equality and social progress in America. Furthermore, Americans are ready for it – for the first time ever, more Americans support rather than oppose gay marriage.

One commenter objected to the idea that Mitch and Cam should have gotten married already because marriage rights were only available briefly in California, though when the show began, the pair had been together for years, and given that they were planning to adopt, it seems fairly reasonable that they might have tied the knot first to make sure their future family would be protected.

And I think that gets at why Erik’s wrong. If Modern Family has Mitch and Cam get hitched without the force of law behind them, they’ll be doing something that Friends did in 1996, putting on a ceremony that a lot of viewers won’t know doesn’t actually convey any legal rights or responsibilities to the couple going through it. And if they wait until marriage is legal in California again, that feels like really kicking the issue down the road, following rather than leading. I’m not say showing Cam and Mitch’s wedding wouldn’t have an impact (though I fear it would also be an occasion for the show to take one of its unfortunately frequent detours into gay stereotyping), but that it would also be forceful and quiet to just assert that normal is a world where two men who are raising a daughter and talking about having a second child are married, and why can’t the rest of us catch up? The show appears to want some credit for leading, even if its creators joke that they’re just normalizing trophy wives. If so, they should do the work to actually be out in front.

In no particular order, things mostly political thoughts that struck me about the shows and roles that garnered Emmy nominations this year:

1. No love for Archer? I don’t adore the show, but it’s spiky and smart, a useful deconstruction of espionage in a pop culture that generally lionizes spies. And the animated programs feel tremendously calcified.

2. The movie or miniseries and casting nominations for Cinema Verite and Too Big to Fail are richly deserved. I loved both movies, which I thought were smart, stylish, and really valuable and entertaining distillations of big issues — the blurring line between reality and entertainment, and the financial crisis. Both augur good things for the large number of political projects HBO has on its slate.

3. Louis C.K. deserves every accolade he gets. I doubt he’ll beat Steve Carrell or Alec Baldwin for best actor in a comedy, but where those two performances toe up to the vast ocean of male insecurity and run away from it, Louis goes swimming in it. Presumably with his shirt on over a bathing suit.

4. Ditto for Idris Elba. The lack of Emmy love for The Wire or David Simon more generally is mystifying. But I do think Luther uses more of Elba’s range than Stringer Bell. And I’d like to see more British shows with short seasons get in the Emmy pool through the miniseries or movie category, if they’re not going to get in through the main series ones. I haven’t watched The Big C yet, so I’m yet to form an opinion on his guest role there, but clearly he’s an Emmy favorite. It’ll be interesting to see if an American network notices that and acts accordingly.
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