Nashville, Glee, and the realization of creative ambition
I've had this article open in a tab for... [checks article date] ...apparently about four months now? -- fully intending to link to it and talk about it! And now I finally am. *facepalm*
Unsurprisingly, the shows that include rape and murder-even as a one-off plot rather than a regularly featured occurrence, as in Nashville-dramatically outnumber the ones that find their stakes elsewhere, 109 to 16. As NPR critic Linda Holmes wrote last year, it’s exhausting to have a world of television where the only stakes that are treated as if they’re worthy of long-form exploration are “avoiding being violently killed.” And so I thought it was worth looking through the list of sixteen shows that haven’t gone to the rape or murder well to see what other kinds of stakes seem to be playing well-or at least moderately well-on scripted drama.
1. The realization of creative ambition: Bunheads, Glee, Smash, The Wedding Band, Nashville, Underemployed, to a certain extent The Newsroom are all shows that fall into this category. Creative ambition works well on television for a couple of reasons. Writing a song or story, preparing for a performance or a broadcast, or going after a contract or a part is an essentially procedural process: it has a beginning, middle, and an end point.
...which crystallized for me why I've been enjoying both Glee and Nashville so much, generally speaking, and also some of the reasons that I've been frustrated when I've been frustrated. My primary point of fannishness about Glee is Kurt/Blaine (as even the most cursory glance at my Tumblr demonstrates), but the thing I like most about the show qua show is indeed the emphasis on creative ambition -- which is why my other big 'ships are Rachel/Broadway and Mercedes/record deal, why "Asian F" was one of my very favorite eps of S3, and why "Wonder-ful" was one of my favorites of S4. Same thing but more so with Nashville; I'm not especially interested in any of the (variously trainwrecky) romantic relationships except insofar as they intersect with or amplify the stories of the three central female characters' assorted struggles, successes, and conflicts with and within the music industry.
There are other things I like about both shows, of course. The LGBT representation on Glee has had a fair number of *facepalm* moments (and a few utterly rage-inducing moments) but is often quite good and is certainly miles ahead of anything else on TV in terms of sheer number of characters. Nashville has Connie Britton. (What? I can be shallow!) Both shows convey, albeit in quite different ways, what it's like to process emotions in terms of songs -- something that resonates very stongly with me.
But the creative ambition thread of both shows is central for me, and I get frustrated when that thread is downplayed in favor of ~political intrigue~ or love triangles or what have you -- or for that matter when the ambition is presented as the characters' ostensible motivation without any narrative attention to what the characters are actually doing (or sacrificing) for the sake of that ambition.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
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Unsurprisingly, the shows that include rape and murder-even as a one-off plot rather than a regularly featured occurrence, as in Nashville-dramatically outnumber the ones that find their stakes elsewhere, 109 to 16. As NPR critic Linda Holmes wrote last year, it’s exhausting to have a world of television where the only stakes that are treated as if they’re worthy of long-form exploration are “avoiding being violently killed.” And so I thought it was worth looking through the list of sixteen shows that haven’t gone to the rape or murder well to see what other kinds of stakes seem to be playing well-or at least moderately well-on scripted drama.
1. The realization of creative ambition: Bunheads, Glee, Smash, The Wedding Band, Nashville, Underemployed, to a certain extent The Newsroom are all shows that fall into this category. Creative ambition works well on television for a couple of reasons. Writing a song or story, preparing for a performance or a broadcast, or going after a contract or a part is an essentially procedural process: it has a beginning, middle, and an end point.
...which crystallized for me why I've been enjoying both Glee and Nashville so much, generally speaking, and also some of the reasons that I've been frustrated when I've been frustrated. My primary point of fannishness about Glee is Kurt/Blaine (as even the most cursory glance at my Tumblr demonstrates), but the thing I like most about the show qua show is indeed the emphasis on creative ambition -- which is why my other big 'ships are Rachel/Broadway and Mercedes/record deal, why "Asian F" was one of my very favorite eps of S3, and why "Wonder-ful" was one of my favorites of S4. Same thing but more so with Nashville; I'm not especially interested in any of the (variously trainwrecky) romantic relationships except insofar as they intersect with or amplify the stories of the three central female characters' assorted struggles, successes, and conflicts with and within the music industry.
There are other things I like about both shows, of course. The LGBT representation on Glee has had a fair number of *facepalm* moments (and a few utterly rage-inducing moments) but is often quite good and is certainly miles ahead of anything else on TV in terms of sheer number of characters. Nashville has Connie Britton. (What? I can be shallow!) Both shows convey, albeit in quite different ways, what it's like to process emotions in terms of songs -- something that resonates very stongly with me.
But the creative ambition thread of both shows is central for me, and I get frustrated when that thread is downplayed in favor of ~political intrigue~ or love triangles or what have you -- or for that matter when the ambition is presented as the characters' ostensible motivation without any narrative attention to what the characters are actually doing (or sacrificing) for the sake of that ambition.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth