Apr 23 2008
Superconnected
I don’t wanna think about those things anymore. – Broken Social Scene, “Superconnected”
So I was going to write a post about some of the reality TV I’ve seen lately, largely about the connection between the house flipping shows and the credit crisis. It was going to be your fairly run-of-the-mill pomo argument collapsing culture and economy. So, Flip this House, the various home redecoration shows, and others of that ilk are themselves operating as a kind of productive base rather than functioning as a cultural superstructure. They don’t – you know what’s coming – “represent” or point to anything outside themselves; rather, they are directly deployed as forces pushing the economic phenomena that led to the mortgage crisis, etc. It’s an easy argument to make, not terribly original, and (of course) true. House flipping reality shows produced the very sorts of speculative relationships operating economically in the US housing markets. Blah.
For some reason, I’m more taken with Supernanny. I’m about to put on my parent cap, but I’ll try not to engage in parental gnosticism, since I know that pisses off booga face, and I don’t want to do that. But this show is really something else. The premise is so absurd that it would constitute an affront to your dignity. A dysfunctional American family residing in a cookie cutter home in some godforsaken treeless suburb of Dallas, Tuscon, Knoxville, or Cincinnati is in desperate need of help. (Indeed, the houses and general appearance of these families are so similar from episode to episode that if you told me the “house” was a set, I’d probably just shrug). The children, usually a brood of kids under 8, are completely out of control, and the parents are weak-kneed imbeciles unable to crack the whip. What to do? Import some foreign labor, of course, in this case, a Cockney accented (Mary Poppins, you know?) “Super Nanny” who will get the situation under control. Yes, you want to cringe. But it’s strangely compelling, for a few reasons.
First, the nanny – called “Nanny Jo,” is goddamn right about 98% of the time. The stuff she comes up with actually works, and makes sense, and fits so lovingly and tenderly into our sense of order, discipline, and control that you want to embrace it with your whole body and soul. If you’ve ever lived through a two-year old’s forty-five minute full out tantrum, you want to run to her, for real. At a very fundamental level, then Supernanny is about carving a sense of order out of a familiar chaotic scene. That it comes with rigorous “time out” policies and an East End sensibility is only gravy.
Second, the show satisfies a deep longing for superiority. The parents are total fuck-ups, so – as a parent – you sit there and shake your head and say stuff like “That type of shit would never happen in my house,” and “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” My usual comment is “My father woulda kicked my ass if I tried to pull that shit.” Also true: he would have.
Supernanny, in this sense, is really like the parents’ answer to the childless twenty-somethings sitting in judgment in restaurants. We still get to judge, see, and we’re probably even worse than the yelpers, because we know what we’re judging. The show teaches you that it really is almost always the parents’ fault, just so long as it’s other parents. In this sense, it’s quite brilliant. Parents of small children still have the residual of their life before kids, and they still have something of that desire to judge, though conditions make it hard. So they judge other parents, and quite ruthlessly. But this makes them feel a little guilty. But if it’s on television, and a whole cultural apparatus and even the Nanny Jo herself has already adjudicated these people terrible and blameworthy, well, then it ain’t so bad. This is broadcast bad conscience in a pure form, and it is well and truly delicious.
Finally, the show is engrossing because at least one of the parents is almost always suffering from what I take to be a fairly serious case of clinical depression, though this is never explicitly mentioned. But it is hinted at, which makes the whole thing at once horrifying and amusing.
Next time, I’ll write about how Top Chef is causing the global rice shortage. Fun stuff.
…and American Idol is prolonging the Democratic primary.
I gotta see this!!! (If only I had TV.)
Something that may seem ironic to you or even to anybody is that even though I’m a single man (and possibly may never have children of my own, at the rate I’m going), I am teaching an entire class on parenting. Yes, funny, isn’t it? Specifically on the cultural politics of single parenting, and my students have been reading Jane Juffer’s recent book Single Mother. And I’ve been watching all sorts of TV shows such as Gilmore Girls and Weeds and even children’s movies such as Nim’s Island. And, as you recall, also movies Juno, Knocked Up, and Waitress, which I blogged on a while back.
The way you describe it, this SuperNanny seems to me to be symptomatic of many of the anxieties and issues Jane talks about. One of her chapters is all about TV shows. I’m wondering if any of the characters on SuperNanny are single parents. Yes? No?
(Oh, and sorry for my assinine comment on She’s post last week. I wasn’t being serious.)
You know, I credit SuperNanny for teaching me how to handle an after-school classful of bored, cranky 5 year old children. I owe part of my late-blooming success with that class to dear, sweet Jo.
And as Booga Face and I have discussed before, all twentysomethingish-types should have to deal with a class of rowdy munchkins: he says so that the teacher may gain a sense of confidence as an authority figure; I agree with him, but would add that the experience will serve as a corrective to the serious ‘tude dished out by the judgemental childless-types.
Supernanny is always, always, always about the deficiency in your “standard” nuclear family. It’s even weirdly and retroactively “nuclear,” as the father usually works while the mother is a “stay-at-home” mom.
We”, I don’t know about always, since I’ve only seen three episodes. But it does seem to be a requirement that 1) the parents be married, and 2) they both be on the scene. If anything, it goes too far the other way in its anxiety about the single mother issues. The Nanny, of course, seems to be single and without her own kids.
To Maya: Yes indeed. Nanny Jo is right 98% of the time. We’re all about the structured time out. And it friggin’ works, even with a 2 year old. I like anyone who is extremely competent at what they do, and she’s definitely in that category.