Sex, Drugs, and Motherhood in the Showtime Dramedy
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Wesleyan University The Honors College No Limits: Sex, Drugs, and Motherhood in the Showtime Dramedy by Ben Goldberg Class of 2017 A thesis submitted to the faculty of Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors from the College of Film and the Moving Image Middletown, Connecticut April, 2017 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction: Difficult Mothers ...................................................................................................... 2 The Premium Cable “Revolution” ........................................................................................................ 5 A Coin to Be Spent ................................................................................................................................11 “Walking the Line between Saint and Sinner” ..................................................................................18 Methodology & Chapter Outline .........................................................................................................23 1. Branding Showtime .........................................................................................................................28 Hailin’ from the Edge ............................................................................................................................30 Dueling Banjos ........................................................................................................................................36 Categorizing the Dramedy ....................................................................................................................42 2. The Godmother: Crafting a Suburban Outlaw in Weeds ..............................................44 “You’ve Made Your Bed, Now Fuck in It:” Nancy as an Unruly Mother ...................................47 Drug Free Zone: Manipulating Setting & Space ...............................................................................51 “The Earth Keeps Turning On:” Narrative Repetition & Variation .............................................58 Colorful Characters: The Botwins & the Rotating Ensemble .........................................................70 Conclusion: “A Meandering Path to the Finale” ..............................................................................83 3. Fractured Selves: Expanding the Brand in United States of Tara ............................87 The Original Programming Boom ......................................................................................................90 From Homemaker to Homewrecker: Tara’s Unruly Alters ............................................................93 Secrets, Lies, & Trauma: Uncovering Tara’s Past .......................................................................... 103 A Shift in Perspective: Internal & External Understandings of DID ......................................... 113 Dancing in the Storm: A Case Study of “Torando!” ..................................................................... 124 Conclusion: Learning to Adapt ......................................................................................................... 130 4. No One Fucks with the Gallaghers: Varying the Dramedy in Shameless ......... 133 A Changing Industry, a Changing Network .................................................................................... 136 “Neglect Fosters Self-Reliance:” Unruly, Absent Parents ............................................................ 142 A Family of Outlaws ........................................................................................................................... 154 The Vicious Cycle: A Narrative of Survival .................................................................................... 163 “So Now I’m Leaving You All Behind Me:” A Case Study of Season 7 ................................... 182 Conclusion: Resisting Closure ........................................................................................................... 190 Conclusion: Blurring the Quality Boundary ........................................................................ 194 Filmography & Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 212 1 Acknowledgements Thank you to my advisor Lisa Dombrowski for your unending support and wisdom. I can’t overstate my gratitude for your perceptive questions, edits, and late-night emails— without which I never would have finished this thesis. Thank you for believing in my project, expanding how I watch films, and pushing me to always follow my curiosities and passions. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor in my film education. Thank you to Betsy Traube for exposing me to the wondrous world of television studies and inspiring this thesis. Thank you for talking through my ideas, letting me sit in on your class, and sharing your knowledge and love of television with me. Thanks as well to Marc Longenecker for your insights and conversations, your MESS scale, and for never letting me forget how simultaneously unique and formulaic every television show is. Thank you as well to Greg Goldberg, Robyn Autry, Abigail Boggs, Kerwin Kaye, and the rest of the Sociology Department for teaching me how to think about the world and write about it. Sincere thanks to the rest of the Film Department for giving me the tools to endeavor on this writing journey: Jeanine Basinger, Scott Higgins, Lea Carlson, Leo Lensing, and Steve Collins. Thank you to the theory/history writing crew for sharing ideas, writings, and frustrations: Allis, Lucy, and Adam. I think it’s time for us to go on that brewery tour. Thanks to all of my friends who have patiently listened to me talk on and on about Showtime for a year and somehow haven’t killed me yet: Jered, Conor, Dylan, Sofi, Zazie, Mary, Caroline, Meghan, Sitar, Katie, and so many more. Many thanks to Sarah for our weekly workshop meetings, swapping stories and paragraphs—and for being the best writer I know. I also cannot properly express my gratitude to Conor, Matt, Caroline, Sarah, and Mira for your last-minute edits. You guys are superstars. Thank you to my 37 Home family—Matt, Mira, Gandharv, Julian. I am thankful for y’all outlining chapters on our white board, brainstorming titles, and telling me when what I’m saying doesn’t make a lick of sense. But, most of all, I am thankful for your friendship, for putting up with me at my worst, playing Nertz, making me laugh, and eating copious amounts of (stale) bread. I love you all. Finally, thank you to my family. To my parents for your love and support and for letting me watch too much inappropriate television when I was way too young. To Angela for being my thesis writing partner in crime seven years apart. And to Veronica for binge- watching all of Weeds season two with me on our portable DVD player many Christmases ago, hiding together in your room from all the adults. 2 Introduction Difficult Mothers “If there’s a God up there, something above, God shine your light down here. Shine down your love… Love of the loveless.”1 Television is a medium preoccupied with both its past and future. Networks and showrunners are always looking to change up their formulas, both in distribution models and narrative structures, hoping to find the next big hit. Today, in 2017, many critics and showrunners claim that we live in a moment of constant reinvention and promise; in one year, we don’t just see one big hit but fifteen. And yet, despite the industry’s massive transformations, television plays by the same rules of repetition and variation to tell new stories through familiar means. The medium’s changes are always firmly rooted in the history of televisual traditions. No matter how hard it tries, television cannot shake its past. In 2005, Showtime Networks changed forever with the critically acclaimed premiere of the suburban drama-comedy Weeds (2005-2012). Suddenly, critics sat up and paid attention to Showtime, the oft dismissed premium cable network. Between 2005 and 2012, the channel followed Weeds with the premieres of a number of female-driven half-hours, including Nurse Jackie (2009-2015), United States of Tara (2009-2011), and The Big C (2010-2013). While the network had other successes during this time, most notably the serial killer police procedural Dexter (2006-2013), these shows, which I will call “difficult female protagonist dramedies,” helped put Showtime on the map both critically 1 “Love of the Loveless” by Eels; featured in United States of Tara, 1.01 “Pilot,” Showtime, January 18, 2009, directed by Craig Gillespie. 3 and financially.2 This time period marked a moment of incredible growth for the network; its investment in series centered on powerful, complex women—most of whom were also mothers—paid off.3 With strong lead performances and edgy, provocative storytelling, the female-driven dramedy production trend won the network its first string of Emmy nominations and wins.4 At the same time, Showtime’s viewership sky-rocketed, jumping from 13.8 million subscribers in 2005 to 21.3 million subscribers in 2012.5 Showtime had popular programming before 2005, but the dramedies cemented Showtime’s place as a competitive high-quality premium network. The goal of this thesis is to illustrate how, through generic hybridity, Showtime’s female-driven dramedies6