Wednesday, September 7, 2016

My Beef With “The Cleveland Show”

The Simpsons
          There are actually several problems I have with the now long-cancelled The Cleveland Show—the ungainly third child in the Seth MacFarlane stable of animated adult cartoons that all share one universe (confirmed by that episode where they all got hit by the same hurricane). There are some obvious issues I could point to—that this is a show about black characters created by three white dudes, or that like all MacFarlane Brand Programming The Cleveland Show has major issues with trans people but, somehow, to an even greater degree than Family Guy or American Dad!, which only manage to be all “ewww gross trans people” every so often instead of what seems like every other episode in the case of this show. I feel like those particular issues are pretty glaring, though, and my actual, real, deepest-seated problem with The Cleveland Show does not have anything to do with social justice.

            My beef with The Cleveland Show is that it squandered its potential.

            John McWhorter once described The Cleveland Show as “basically Family Guy in blackface,” and I think that is a pretty apt assessment of the creativity on display there.[1] This is not to say that I think The Cleveland Show has no redeeming qualities. It still manages to be the sort of bad funny/not-all-that-funny that I will watch consistently whenever I have nothing better to do and it is already on television. Low effort for the occasional laugh. The series does unabashedly follow the Seth MacFarlane Formula For Comedic Success (Maybe), however, with talking animals, a precocious child character, and oddly catchy musical numbers.[2] In fact, so closely following this mold is how The Cleveland Show fails to make good on its initial promise.

            When Cleveland leaves Quahog for California to pursue his dream job as a minor league baseball scout he gets sidetracked in his hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia when he runs into an old love, Donna Tubbs, who has two rambunctious children, a deadbeat ex-husband, and finds that she has strong feelings for Cleveland as he, over the course of the pilot, helps out with the kids and generally proves himself to be a nice sort of fellow. Donna and Cleveland fall in love and get married… and then the show really begins and what we actually end up with is the same family dynamic as Family Guy and American Dad!—namely a husband-wife duo who give us the same old “women do X but men do Y!” bits that we have seen trotted out over and over again in sitcoms. The pilot suggests that Cleveland is a handy father (good with kids and whatnot), but then we still get the same stories down the road where he plays the part of a goofy, incapable, irresponsible man-child. Donna is the love of his life, but then we get the same old man-is-tired-of-his-nagging-wife plots where, say, Cleveland fakes being deaf to avoid having to listen to Donna talk. This is a comedy, so nobody was expecting an idyll, but this shameless re-hashing of the same dynamic and jokes suggests that the writers had no idea how to deal with a husband-wife pairing other than to shoehorn in the same tired tropes for both the man and his spouse. We talk a lot about damaging tropes for women in pop culture, but one for men that I know I am thoroughly sick of is that of the negligent, goofy father who does not understand his kids (at best) or completely, accidentally, humorously(!) neglects them (at worst). In fact, the general atmosphere of “idiot, clueless man” that permeates a lot of shows or ads that also pull the old “women do X…” etc. trick bothers me.

            If the character of Cleveland was only this trope, that would be one thing, but the show also faithfully copies and pastes the same all-over-the-place characterization used in the fathers in the other two series. Just like Stan and Peter, Cleveland’s personality and character vary wildly from episode to episode. Sometimes he is the loving husband and capable father, and sometimes he is an utter child or irrationally, ridiculously dismissive of his wife, children, and responsibilities. Donna fares little better. She shares many similarities with Lois and Francine: All of them are cast as pleased domestics at points who occasionally try to jumpstart other careers with the grudging support of their husbands. They are all good in a fight and have some kind of sordid past that is casually alluded to for… humor. Look, the juxtaposition of housewife with “good in a fight” works. It is funny—just not when you reproduce the exact same thing three times over and call it a day.

            Donna, Cleveland, Peter, Lois, Stan, and Francine are not characters: They are comedy vehicles. I once read a very good A.V. Club article (that I can, unfortunately, not find at the moment) that examines the difference between King of the Hill and American Dad! in very similar terms. To paraphrase heavily: Where the characters of King of the Hill are just that (characters who are consistently drawn and have jokes built around their personalities) American Dad! offers no consistent characterization. Stan can be an idiot man-child, a caring father, a loving husband, or a complete misogynist as the joke dictates. This approach is not necessarily “wrong,” but I would argue that it makes the difference between a show with true cultural staying power that can summon genuine pathos for its major players (like, say, King of the Hill) and a show that is ultimately throwaway, forgettable. Like The Cleveland Show. Like using a pop culture reference in place of an actual joke. Shows like Community and Bob’s Burgers establish characters first and then build the jokes around the ways certain characters act and react. But, to be fair to The Cleveland Show for a moment, this was never MacFarlane’s MO. It is not like it had any real chance of not being what it was, but the fact that there was a chance—however slim—at the start to shake things up with a new location, new characters, and new relationships irks me. It speaks to the industrial quality of reality TV series and “reboots” that are cranked out to reproduce safe, old thrills—The implicit assumption is that the world of television is a world of trough feeding and that the viewing public will eat the same thing again and again without caring. Again, repetition is the bread and butter of the MacFarlane Trio, three very dumb series undoubtedly made by smart people.[3]

            How to end this discussion? Perhaps with proof that MacFarlane and company can do better. Here is one really great character moment (of all things) that I suspect may have been accidental:

            In the Family Guy episode “Thanksgiving,” Joe’s son Kevin surprises everyone by showing up alive when he was presumed dead while serving a tour of duty in Iraq. The characters eventually discover that Kevin, who initially claims to have been in a coma, actually went A.W.O.L. To defend Kevin’s actions, Brian, the liberal mouthpiece of the series, turns to Ida—a trans character. Idea’s transition story is the focus of an earlier episode of the show that has become notorious for its protracted, disgusting depiction of a straight man’s reaction to discovering he has had sex with a trans woman.[4] In “Thanksgiving,” however, Brian turns to Ida to support Kevin because first, as Brian explicitly states, Ida also served in the armed forces and should be able to commiserate with Kevin’s negative experience, and second, implicitly, the appeal singles Ida out because by virtue of being a trans person she ought to be more permissive in general, right? Wrong. Ida refuses to support Kevin’s going A.W.O.L. and instead reminds him that he owed his loyalty to the people serving with him.

            What I like about this moment in particular is how it breaks the mold for MacFarlane-verse characterization. Rather than use the appeal to Ida to set up some kind of joke about perceived stereotypes of transwomen, the episode instead allows a character to answer in something like a genuine voice. Ida’s pride in her military background is also completely unrelated to her trans status. It is rare to see a trans character anywhere characterized like this (in a way not somehow related to transition). It feels utterly alien watching this one scene and recalling it after the fact that the episode does not go for some easy jab by using the moment to remind viewers for the umpteenth time that Ida is trans (and that that is disgusting to the show). The way that this brief exchange subtly characterizes Ida and rebukes Brian’s assumptions is better than Family Guy deserves or even usually manages.[5] It is not a humorous moment at all, so as a standard for fixing what was wrong with The Cleveland Show it really does not apply. I suppose all I can really say about it is that, generally, The Cleveland Show was a chance to change the game even slightly or at least up the ante. The characters could have been more clearly drawn to try for a more King of the Hill-esque approach to humor instead of using both cut-aways and non sequiturs again. Cleveland could have had a different family life with Donna—Comedic troubles could arise but their genuine affection for one another could still be evident, rather than being so changeable and seemingly distant to the characters mere episodes after they were married. That the show could do no more than to leap from love to dissatisfaction so quickly demonstrates its lack of faith in its own ability to make audiences laugh without resorting to the same old shtick. And that is The Cleveland Show’s greatest sin: a lack of imagination and an apparent unwillingness to try to be anything other than “Family Guy in blackface.”
      
Notes:

[1] McWhorter, John. “Just a Cartoon, But Still: Is Family Guy in Blackface Funny?” The New Republic, New Republic, 2016. Accessed 7 Sept. 2016.


[3] Of the three, American Dad! is easily my favorite. It starts out rough in seasons one and two but really finds its footing in three. Although it also borrows the same dynamics from Family Guy, it somehow manages to make them work. The most recent season that aired only on TBS felt weaker, but there are some great comedy moments in the mix. Furthermore, Roger is a brilliant character—one who perfectly embodies the spirit of the MacFarlane-verse since he is ever changing (through costume) and can meet whatever comedic or narrative demands a particular episode may have. Certain episodes of American Dad!, especially “Lost in Space,” actually manage to summon the same mixture of humor and genuine feeling that you could consistently find in the likes of Futurama.

[4] The guy is, of course, Brian. He vomits for a long time. The vomit is really the only thing that moves as Stewie looks on and Brian keeps vomiting. The vomit creeps across the floor. It goes on so long. It is… humor.

[5] I do not think anyone in Family Guy has really grown as a character over time, though I guess Brian has become less well-liked by other characters. On the other hand, I will admit that American Dad! and The Cleveland Show do attempt some small developments. Stan becomes somewhat less intolerant of gay people, and Cleveland becomes somewhat less intolerant of Hispanic people.

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