Revus on Revus—’The New Normal’ is abnormally unfunny

If this is the new normal, let me revel in my abnormalities…

TheNewNormal

Patrice Greanville

Are we being too nasty? Other critics share our doubts. Ross Bonaime, of Pastemagazine.com, observes:

When these characters on The New Normal get large, they don’t become funnier, they become irritating to an almost unbearable level. This week it was the trio of Jane, Rocky and Shania in “The Goldie Rush.” In their story this week, Shania is getting picked on at school, so Jane and Rocky’s solution is that she should take on some tips the two of them learned from a pair of drag queens. If you outdo the other kid’s insults and win, you’ll become the queen bee of the school. Great lesson to teach a kid.

It just seems like the writers of The New Normal decided the best thing to do was team up its two weakest characters with the hopes that this will increase their likeability. There’s no real reason for Rocky and Jane to be BFFs, but here we are, watching them going on their own misadventures and befriending drag queens. It’s such a weird combination of characters, but just throwing them together doesn’t make them any more interesting. 

In the final analysis our core disgust with TNN is largely anchored in the fact that it presents gay people —the same demographic that Hollywood liberals promoted so heavily as a wedge issue, as preternaturally devoid of serious concerns, a harmful stereotype gays have been fighting to shake off for a long time. Unfortunately this is something of a natural choice for the creative vermin that permeates so much imperial television these days.  Have we lost our sense of humour? No. Must everything be weighted down with topical heviosity? Categorically no. But an expensive collective production like a television show, expecting to capture some of the ever scarcer mental focus in a dislocated public mind, should at least work hard to justify its existence.  This in an age —need I remind you—that can be fairly categorized as the end of the line for humanity and planet earth. Squandering mass communications time is simply criminal—and the fact that this is almost the norm does not make it any less criminal. Martini, anyone?

—P. Greanville is TGP’s editor in chief.

 _____________________________________

Below, another take on TNN, with which we kind of agree. —Eds

TV critic, The Huffington Post

newnormalIt’s not surprising that networks are metaphorically clawing each others’ eyes out to work with Ryan Murphy, the co-creator of “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and his latest effort, “The New Normal.”He’s proven time and again that he’s a master at pushing the media’s buttons and getting coverage for his shows, and the programs themselves reflect his relentless ability to attract eyeballs by any means necessary. Murphy’s shows make a lot of noise, and to nervous networks worried about standing out in a cluttered pop-culture landscape, that quality grows more important every day.But beyond the heat and the hype, is there anything recognizably human in these intentionally provocative shows? Are they merely constructs designed to gin up and savvily exploit controversy, a cycle that Murphy is able to repeat again and again while the networks haul the lucrative results to the bank? Or are his shows merely feedback loops designed to cynically challenge and then confirm viewers’ least charitable impulses?Those questions matter quite a bit when it comes to “The New Normal” (previews at 10 p.m. ET Monday, officially premieres at 9:30 p.m. ET Tuesday on NBC), which Murphy created with Ali Adler. More than any of his previous shows, “The New Normal” rests on the assumption that a broadcast-network sized audience will latch on to the emotional aspirations at the center this comedy, which tells the story of a gay couple and the surrogate they hope will bear a child for them.The thing is, if viewers can’t make real connections with the hopes of these characters, there won’t be any Top 40 songs, latex freaks or plastic-surgery disasters to distract people from that fact (though I wouldn’t rule any of those things out if the comedy’s ratings are weak).On the positive side of the ledger, “The New Normal” does have some witty lines and the cast is solid (attention “Real Housewives” fans: NeNe Leakes is surprisingly good as a supporting character). The comedy is a slickly made piece of entertainment, and the shamelessly sentimental moments aren’t too eyeroll-inducing, thanks mainly to the skills of Georgia King, who plays a Midwestern surrogate named Goldie, and Justin Bartha, who plays David, the quieter half of the lead couple.On the less positive side of the ledger, “The New Normal” features a whole bunch of Murphy standbys, which, if you’ve been following his work since “Nip/Tuck” premiered a decade ago, are starting to seem pretty threadbare.Unsurprisingly, a laundry list of stereotypes are deployed and “abnormals” are mocked throughout “The New Normal’s” first episode; it’s like a season of “Glee” in concentrated form. In the pilot alone, there are disparaging or racist references to Jews, Chinese people, those who aren’t thin and a disabled man; a woman refers to herself as a “whore,” and Leakes’ character comes dangerously close to being a sassy stereotype.There’s no doubt that Andrew Rannells’ character, Bryan, is a compilation of gay stereotypes: He’s fussy, superficial, obsessed with looks, celebrities, dieting, designer clothes, etc. Rannells does what he can with the character, but, in the pilot, the attempts to make Bryan something more than a cardboard cut-out seem half-hearted at best. It’s hard not to fear for Goldie’s potential child, given that Bryan views the acquisition of it as a form of accessorizing.Where “The New Normal” really excels is in deploying questionable or flat-out objectionable attitudes and then (haha! It was just a joke!) “taking them back.” The show gives most of the problematic lines to Ellen Barkin, who plays Goldie’s unrepentant grandmother, Nana. Other characters call Nana on her unpleasant behavior, so it doesn’t matter. Everyone can be bitchy, judgmental and mean, as long as they reveal secret pain later, right?Maybe not. It’s not just that, in the aggregate, all these comments create a mean-spirited tone. Maybe that’s what the show’s creators are after — a cashmere baby blanket wrapped around jungle-red talons. It’s not even that these kinds of moves allow Murphy to both take the underdog’s side and briskly take down the underdog whenever it suits his purposes, which becomes dispiriting over time (and led me to eventually give up on “Glee”).

Ultimately, Murphy’s patented brand of ju-jitsu is tiresome because it’s predictable. Murphy’s creative philosophy seems to revolve around the idea that nothing succeeds like excess, and maybe that’s true when it comes to deploying shocks on “American Horror Story.” But “The New Normal” needs to work in a more linear and emotionally direct fashion, and there’s not much about this NBC pilot, which is fueled by a mixture of cattiness and slick manipulation, that reassures me on that front.

When it became clear that the brittle, idiotic stereotypes of “2 Broke Girls” weren’t part of a passing phase, critics didn’t have a problem bashing that show, but a multi-camera sitcom on CBS may just offer a more tempting target. Also, in fairness, it took some time before it became clear that “2 Broke Girls” not only didn’t want to fix its problems, but didn’t think it had anything to fix. But I wonder how much of a pass “The New Normal” will get; it shouldn’t get much of one if it continues to display a certain kind of sanctimony while frequently being ungenerous and unkind.

We’ll have to see if “The New Normal” doubles down on its uncharitable impulses, but if past is prologue, we’re in for a lot of fat jokes and cruel asides about anyone who isn’t good-looking, well-to-do and white. Chances are a lot of the humor will continue to revolve around Nana’s (tee-hee!) naughty racism, Bryan’s judgmental pronouncements and the aw-shucks naivety of Goldie (what can you expect? She’s from Ohio!).

I get that “The New Normal’s” first duty is to be funny — and it is, at times — but, long-term, it needs viewers to invest in the lives of the central trio. We have to care about what they’re going through for some the humor and all of the pathos to land. But is the show truly interested in exploring emotions beyond token scenes that might as well be labeled, “Here are people having feelings now”? That remains to be seen.

Ryan McGee and I discussed “The New Normal,” “Guys With Kids” and “Sons of Anarchy” in this week’s Talking TV podcast, which is on iTunes and below.

Follow Maureen Ryan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/moryan
SELECT COMMENTS (We present these opinions as further material for study as to where our collapsing civilization is at.)
Why don’t you guys just sit back and have fun with the silliness of it all? All this PC is so tiresome, I love the show for what it is: Glee like fluff in a different setting. It’s not a drama series bent on social commentary, so why criticize it as if it was?
237 Fans·”Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum!”
Are you kidding us? The grandma is the reason this show is alive! The clear majority will laugh only because of her!
Just need to get this off my chest. Last week I anxiously watched The New Normal with high hopes of loving a new show. Instead I was given a show with so much offensiveness that I had to remove it from my auto recordings and unlike its Facebook page. Not only was the mother over the top offensive, but the two male gay characters so stereotypical that it annoyed me to no end.
Gay stereotype that we’ve seen before. Painful to watch.
2nd episode was better… Nana is still ridiculous and unbelievable, but Bryan showed signs of actually being human and not some gay cartoon. I think Nana’s bigotry is so over the top and fake sounding that it actually loses effectiveness. Either go full on mean and lose the funny, or tone down the zingers to make it seem more real. The absurdity of her opinions would still be there without having to think of a new gay blow job joke each week.
Good thing Maureen didn’t see the earlier episodes of “All In the Family”; she’d have had a heart attack for sure.
In reply to: talkstocoyotes
“All In the Family” was in a totally different time period. Think about where America was at that time, we had just come out of the sixties with the civil rights movement and America was still embracing its new identity as a diverse nation. “All In the Family” tried to illustrate the challenges America was facing in embracing these changes such as integration. The show didn’t make racial jokes just for fun, it was actually social commentary. A way for America to take an honest look at itself. I seriously doubt that is the purpose of the stereotypical and offensive jokes on this show. They probably just trying to be provocative because they think its hip or edgy. It seems immature to me. “Wow, you are so cool because you used the F-word”.
In reply to: LL2
Everything you’re saying about “All In the Family” could apply to this show. People can make the argument that the pointed jokes didn’t work; but I remember when AITF was new quite clearly, and it got exactly the same criticisms.
I REALLY wanted this show to work. But I don’t have much hope, which is a shame as it wont take much to sort it out. All it would take to fix it is to tone down the Nana and Bryan characters. Remove the fashionista from the queen and the racist from the bigot and you could have a great show. But if they push those stereotypes and play for the cheap jokes then it wont make it.
I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.
I watched (enough of) what I suspect was a preview of “The New Normal”. Derogations flew left and right but the last straw came when Ellen Barkin’s character referred to the gay couple as “SALAMI SMOKERS”. Really? Is this what they’ve sunk to in network primetime? Is Murphy so confident in his success that he would allow such nauseatingly offensive language to disparage every gay man on this planet? I don’t know about life in his cushy cocoon but in my world, where I see young gay men struggle with slurs being hurled at them like spitballs, this kind of casual filth is reprehensible.
I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood and remember a man once refer to a friend’s father with a horrible slur. My mother called his slur the product of an ignorant man. Imagine then, the character played by NeNe Leakes, a black actress, being referred to as the same demeaning slur my neighborhood bigot used. Production would cease. The show would be shut down. Plenty of people would see to it. Why then is it still okay for gays to be subjects of derision, especially in this case, when a gay man has the final say?
Mr. Murphy, you disgust me. You should be ashamed. As I’ve continued writing this post, I’ve decided your “Glee” is no longer of interest. The same goes for NBC as long as they feel it’s ‘normal’ for must-see-TV to include gutter language that diminishes an entire population.


The must-watch TV show of the night: ‘Hot Coffee’ on HBO (VIDEO)

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately this film is only available on HBO, a premium channel, and still well outside many people’s budgets. Look for it, however, in DVD format, buy it used if necessary. The issues covered concern the question of so-called “frivolous lawsuits”, the astroturf “movement” for tort reform (setting limits on corporate responsibility), and jury “punitive caps”—all critical areas of law heavily interfered with and opposed by practically the entire roster of Fortune 500 companies and their allies.

By Ken Tucker
Just a quick heads-up: If you can, watch Hot Coffee on HBO (currently also available on demand). Remember the 1994 court case of the woman who was awarded $2.9 million for spilling a cup of McDonald’s coffee on herself? It even became a plot point in an episode of Seinfeld. Well, you don’t know the half of it.

Hot Coffee is a documentary that will leave you both stunned and enlightened about the misconceptions we have about civil lawsuits, in this case, and in general. Stella Liebeck, 79 years-old, suffered third-degree burns within seven seconds of opening a cup of McDonald’s coffee while sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car. All she asked for in bringing a lawsuit was the difference between what Medicare paid for and her medical bills. (Liebeck required skin grafts and other operations.) It was a jury that awarded her the large sum — which the jury noted represented a mere two days of McDonald’s coffee sales. The judge reduced that sum, and the case was settled out of court.

Liebeck’s story is eye-opening enough, but Hot Coffee goes on to present three more cases in which ordinary citizens were severely wronged by private companies, the medical profession, and political operatives. (There’s a rape case here with a corporate response to it that will chill your soul and make your blood boil.) Watch Hot Coffee and you’ll learn more about the pernicious effect of tort reform, damage caps, and how state supreme court judges campaigns are sometimes conducted. (Hint: Follow Karl Rove throughout this film.)

Watch Hot Coffee and you won’t be so quick to dismiss something as a “frivolous lawsuit” again.
—end—

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Notice to our audience: All comments suspended until further notice due to spamming and defamation/harassment threats. Check Facebook’s Links for the Wild Left for comment threads on our articles.

Links for the Wildly Left

 ADVERT PRO NOBIS
________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

IF YOU THINK THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA ARE A DISGRACE AND A HUGE OBSTACLE
to real change in America why haven’t you sent at least a few dollars to The Greanville Post (or a similar anti-corporate citizen’s media?). Think about it.  Without educating and organizing our ranks our cause is DOA. That’s why our new citizens’ media need your support. Send your badly needed check to “TGP, P.O. Box 1028, Brewster, NY 10509-1028.” Make checks out to “P. Greanville/ TGP”.  (A contribution of any amount can also be made via Paypal and MC or VISA—see our right column for that.)
THANK YOU.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________
PROMOTIONAL MESSAGE
A TOOL IS USELESS IF IT’S NOT USED.
Don’t just sit there…introduce a friend or relative to The Greanville Post and help us expand the reach of remedial ideas and information. If each of you brings merely ONE additional reader to the table, we will be able to double our circulation!

____________________________________________________________________