The Reluctant Wife has been binge watching a series called
Episodes. Originally available on
Showtime, it is now a completed series of five seasons that is available on
Netflix. The premise of the show is that
two British comedy writers married to each other, Sean (Stephen Mangan) and
Beverly (Tamsin Greig), have a successful show in England and the rights to it
and their talent are bought up by a Hollywood network to air the series in the
US and Matt LeBlanc (Played by Matt LeBlanc) is plunked into that series by the
producers and agents and studio heads and powers that be, ruining the show,
their marriage, and rudely awakening them to what Hollywood and fame can do to
undermine their integrity while simultaneously casting a spell on them so that
they become starstruck, transfixed and mired in a world that they hate but can’t
seem to pull away from.
Watching this series has felt like eating candy – it tastes
good, but it doesn’t fill me up – in fact, I feel a little sick – OK, rotten to
the core – after watching it. I feel as
sucked into the series and Sean and Beverly feel sucked into Hollywood. And that reminds me, oddly, of the feeling of
having been sucked into watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was
teenager. Just as I am currently identifying
with the good, clean Sean and Beverly from England, I identified then with Brad
and Janet – virginal kids from the Midwest who stumble into an alien
universe. Hollywood as the alien
universe is filled with beautiful people who are so enamored with themselves
and so pampered that they don’t even know where the sheets are kept. Rocky Horror’s alternate universe included a
seemingly seamier assortment of sexually obsessed transsexuals, transvestites
and, of course, Meatloaf. In both cases,
I am both repulsed and fascinated. I
want nothing to do with these alternate universes – and I want to live – or wallow
– in them and their lurid qualities.
The actors who play Sean and Beverly don’t fit on the screen
with any of the others. Beverly has
lines around her eyes – delightful, expressive lines that help make her real
and alive – but no other woman character has any lines – their faces are all
stretched tight by genes, botox, surgery or some combination. Sean is just plain goofy looking. At one point, he is compared to Wallace and
Gromit, the British claymation characters, and it is an apt description. It is not hard to see how this dweeby couple
would be star struck. It is also not
hard to see how they would experience themselves as simultaneously superior to
these characters whose antics betray levels of shallowness that compete with
the Himalayas. Every time LeBlanc or his pals do something
low – they top it with something even more astoundingly low.
So what is the fascination?
With Rocky Horror, it’s clear.
Sex – as messy and dirty and confusing as it is – especially when we
start bending genders – is still sex. We
are built to be drawn to it. Brad and
Janet’s prim personas soon drop away and they, like we, revel in what the “creatures
of the night” have to offer. How is it
that Matt LeBlanc – the least interesting of the pretty banal group of white
kids that hung out in New York together in Friends those many years ago – holds
any fascination at all? I fear that it
may have to do with a crazy identification with him. I think that he is a bit like us.
“Hold on,” you may say, “are you saying that you feel like
one of the beautiful people – one the vacuous beautiful people? You aren’t that pretty, pal.” True.
And I don’t play basketball well either, but I still dream of being
Michael Jordan. But it’s more than
identification based on wishing to be like.
I think we are, in odd ways, quite close to the essence of the Matt LeBlanc that Matt LeBlanc plays in this dramedy.
I am fond of pointing out to anyone who will listen, that we
are the most privileged people to have ever walked the earth. Queen Victoria – Alexander the Great – Louis the
XVth – have very little on us. For one
thing, we have indoor plumbing and none of them – with the possible exception
of the Queen in her dotage – did. We can
also fly. In fact, we can get from city
to city faster than any of them could, whether by land, sea or air, and in much greater comfort. And when we get there, we can find accommodations
that they could not have imagined – and we don’t have to carry bring along a whole retinue - we can stick a few things in an overnight bag and go. We live in homes that
are warmer – and cooler – than any of them did.
We are living (perhaps not sustainably, but still…) better than anyone
in history has ever lived.
So, while Matt LeBlanc, like Queen Victoria, has no idea
where his sheets are kept – we (who wash and put away our own sheets, thank you
very much), like Matt and the Queen, command more luxury than our grandparents
could have imagined. And what are we
doing with that? How are we using it to
serve the greater good? Do we appreciate
it? Do we wake up in awe each morning
that our homes are reasonably clean, dry and temperate? That we eat fresh food that comes from
halfway around the world? Nah, we
complain that the oranges we bought last week are going moldy or that our
internet connection is lousy or that we ran into too many red lights on the way
into work this morning.
When we see through Sean and Beverly’s eyes what Matt and
his ilk are up to, we are, I think, gazing at a fun-house mirror version of
ourselves. We see a pampered group of
people who are so concerned about getting their own cut of whatever pie is
being cut up that they don’t actually taste the pie – they don't have a clue just how
damn good it is.
OK, but it is not just a mirror. We are, as Hannah Gadsby points out, looking
at the people who are responsible for our stories – for the narratives that we
carry around inside of us and that will give order and meaning to the lives we
lead. And these people – perhaps oddly
reflecting us – are as distracted by things like texts and pettiness as we
are. As a neighbor recently pointed out
to me when I was complaining about the political state of affairs while walking
the dog – we are living in Rome, not Athens.
We are not the beacon shining bright to gather others in – we are self-absorbed
idiots in search of even greater creature comforts - and a good fight at the Coliseum.
As I was writing this piece in my head, I thought to myself –
if people have read other posts, they will wonder what has happened to the
irrepressible optimist who wrote at least some of them. The more psychologically minded might wonder
if that fellow is depressed. Well, all
is not currently jolly around here – locally, regionally, or nationally – but I
think this show and its craving for me (I don’t desire IT - IT wants me to
watch and admire it) – evokes an awareness of the finitude of narrative – of the
limits of the story about the human condition to lift ourselves above the human
condition. It does not quite have that
power. We are always – in fact, we are
always more deeply – human. We are drawn
to sex and creature comforts – and to believing that whatever we are interested
in at this very moment is the most interesting thing ever.
Thank goodness Beverly and Sean are lurking around the
corner – noticing what we are doing, calling us on it, and writing about
it (and the writing on this show is very good). Perhaps, in addition to being sucked
in and drowning in the saccharine sweetness of it all, we can also laugh at
ourselves a bit – step back – and take a moment to appreciate that this is a
pretty wonderful world that we live in – the one that’s just outside our own
craniums.
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