The Chuck Finale: What Network TV Tells Us About Love and Marriage

Most people don't go to church anymore. Charles Murray notes that regular religious attendance is pretty restricted to the White Upper Class. But people, still, even with network audience erosion, park themselves in front of the TV every day. Television, and the attitudes it both reflects and helps create, in a feedback loop, is very interesting. It is a giant, two-way mirror into both public attitudes and elite opinion (nothing on TV, overwhelmingly, reflects anti-elite opinion) that if examined closely can predict trends and emerging opinions.

The Series Finale of NBC's "Chuck," one of the most unusual shows on the air, certainly helps the argument that TV's messages are worthy of examination. They also reinforce the observation of David Mamet, who in "the Secret Knowledge" said that years ago, love stories consisted of two people who loved each other intensely, and overcame barriers to be together. Today, love stories consist of people who don't really like each other, but decide for outside reasons to make a go of a relationship. Telling, that is. There is a reason for it. And another.


The first reason is of course, that today's society has absolute freedom. Freedom to be with whoever you choose. There are no Scarlett Letters anymore, nor forbidden love. Heck even Gays can marry, if not in say, South Dakota, then certainly California, or Hawaii, or Massachusetts. Gays can cohabit as partners anywhere. Openly gay personalities are beloved on TV, from Ellen, to Neil Patrick Harris, to the entire cast it would seem of Fox's "Glee," beloved of tweens, teen girls, and their moms. Almost any kind of relationship is possible, which is why Hollywood mines the past, ala Jane Austen, or various disabilities, such as The Surrogate where a man in an iron lung loses his virginity to a sex therapist played by Helen Hunt.

There are no real barriers, that are believable, so the barriers Hollywood uses to amp up tension, are two people who have their own internal barriers: at least one does not like the other, and there is no mutual longing found fairly quickly. Instead outside forces combine to make people stick together. Generally involving one or more of the following actors and actresses: Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up, the Ugly Truth, 27 Dresses, Life as We Know It); Gerard Butler (also the Ugly Truth, the Bounty Hunter, PS I Love You), Sandra Bullock (While You Were Sleeping, the Proposal), Matthew McConaghey (Failure to Launch), and any Jennifer Aniston movie. "Chuck" definitely falls into this category.

This is generally Hollywood's formula now: two people meet, one falls for the other, the other not. Outside forces (drunken one-night stand pregnancy, morning show stunts, immigration enforcement/deportation, a "spy assignment" as an asset handler) force the (almost always the woman) to put up with the obnoxious guy and over a period of being exposed to his "real" good qualities and inspiring better, more adult behavior, leading to finally a "real" relationship. Almost always, the deck is "stacked" by having handsome, virile men play the man-boys, Josh Duhamel, Butler, Owen Wilson, McConaghey, Ryan Reynolds, or "Chuck's" own Zachary Levi. Heigl famously objected to being paired in the movie "Knocked Up" with fattie Seth Rogen, which was just a performance. Even professional actresses doing a performance for a movie soon forgotten by everyone involved, object to being "insulted" by being paired on-screen with a less than A-List Alpha A-hole. In their minds it makes them look ugly.

The second, more hidden reason is that Hollywood itself has little confidence, reflected in both its own hot-house relationship failures, and ugly power dynamics, and the larger outside world, in any lasting, real relationship. This is particularly true in entertainment aimed at women. This is what guys tend to like:



Dr. Pepper Ten? Well it is funny, "not for women," chiefly because of the total absence of any kind of relationship drama.

Hollywood relationships don't last long. This has an effect particularly on writers, who tend to reflect this difficulty in what they create because they see it and know it well. The demands of catering to "ups and downs" in a TV or movie relationship, aimed at attracting women, makes this an easy short-cut as well. This caters to what blogger Dalrock calls the Endless Courtship Fantasy, such as the "Christian" movie "Fireproof," where the husband has to win his divorcing wife back all over again, constantly. Or the Vow (where a car accident leaves a wife with no memory of a husband who must woo her all over again). It is the fantasy of being eternally young, eternally pursued, eternally not having to make a choice, eternally the center of a man's attention. A roller coaster, and a proven way to attract women, either as a Pick Up Artist (that's a classic technique -- push/pull attraction, designed to elicit high highs and low lows of feeling that women get hooked on) … or a television or movie script writer. Offering the same thing. Because it works.

In short, Endless Courtship is the female immature version of playing WoW all day. Or slacking through life. No way to build a lasting relationship, that is critical for creating and sustaining a family. Creating and sustaining a family requires an adult moving-beyond passion, ups/downs in emotions, in favor of stability and sacrifice that kids need. That is what the nuclear family is all about, being more than just two people feeding the need (of one) to create intense emotion(s). Rather, mature and stable self-sacrifice and mutual dependency that raising healthy kids demands. Increasingly, both on-screen and in wider life, that sort of mutual self-sacrifice is just not in the cards, save for the few genetically blessed or the upper classes.

Not when ultimate freedom means walking away. How sad is that? That love stories depend on shadowy government agencies, or threats of deportation, or some bounty hunter, or taking care of a friend's baby after they die, to fall in love and get married? But that is the state of romance in movies and TV today, reflecting the reality of ultimate freedom. Anyone can and will walk away in a heartbeat. Sickness and health? More like, "Not happy, see you, bye!" Increasingly, relationships are defined by movies, TV, and real life, as endless courting not mature devotion. The attitude of endless courting, following an obvious "Happy Divorce" metaphor, and no actual mature relationship, characterized the finale in "Chuck."

Which is a shame, since there were many things that made "Chuck" unique: observations on relative advantages in intelligence in men and women; how truly repulsive omega males are to women (and how that is behaviorally based), and why Omega males stay that way; the idea of "improvement" of a beta male into a credible Alpha, with the help of family, friends, and (naturally) a hot, tough, but underneath sensitive woman. Certainly the show encapsulated the idea that it took an act of God (or his replacement: the Government) to put a man and a woman who obviously belonged together, well, together.

One of the really unique observations in "Chuck" was intelligence. The Bartowski siblings, Chuck and his older sister Ellie, are both highly intelligent, and attractive, tall people. Their father was depicted as a super-genius (and played by Scott Bakula). But Chuck's intelligence is consistently played as one reason for his lack of confidence and success with women generally, and the beautiful spy-handler he falls for in particular (Sarah, played wonderfully by Yvonne Strahowski). Star Zachary Levi does a great job portraying fumbling nervousness because he can imagine, in painful detail, the rejection, the mistake-making, the obvious disadvantages that his character's real persona (as opposed to his spy alias) create for him. His sister, who is shown to be equally as intelligent, and a Doctor, has no such problems. She is the pursued, and had been won by a guy who is both a Greek God (Ryan McPartlin), and a fellow Doctor. For her, intelligence was a plus, her brains plus beauty won her the top guy, who Chuck and best-pal Morgan (the incomparable Joshua Gomez) nickname "Captain Awesome." Because the guy is indeed, awesome.

Time and time again, Chuck over-thinks things, in approaching women, like he would approach a video game, or computer program, or any other highly technical problem. He also obsesses over particular women and gets one-itis, shown as a weakness on the show repeatedly. His great strength (sustained focus) thus becomes a hideous weakness, one that in the series pilot shows him bailing out of his own birthday party to avoid the inevitable humiliation around girls. This quandary is familiar to any guy who has been around high-IQ men and women. The women have no real problem, for the most part, in social settings, while the guys around women are ill at ease. Because all their strengths: obsessive focus, over-thinking, attacking complexity, produces failure after failure. And they don't know why. After all, it brings them success in work.

Also fascinating was the Beta Male/Omega Male hang-out of the "Buy More," a retail hell based loosely on Best Buy (with elaborate parody clothing and sets). Clearly the writers had worked retail, and the stupid employee hijinks ('Mystery Crisper' where best pal Morgan eats blindfolded long-lost employee lunches in the break room fridge) ring true for any who have ever worked retail. As do the Omega Male characters, particularly Lester and Jeffrey (Vik Sahay, Scott Krinsky, comic gold). Two guys so low on the totem pole they can't even see up, and who consequently lack any ambition or motivation other than to be difficult and destructive. "Chuck," as the leader of the group of Omega Males, is shown as their check from disaster,as a natural leader, but one whose lack of any woman in his life leads to "Going his own way" which amounts to going nowhere. A man who opts out of society, who has no hope of girlfriend or family life, easily ends up like Lester or Jeffrey. As Jeffrey put it, "Off by eight. Hammered by eight-fifteen." That's clearly where Chuck is headed, before Sarah shows up.

Slowly but surely, Chuck helps pull not only higher Omega male pal Morgan, but even Jeffrey and Lester out of Omega-dom, and for Morgan into an actual, real, sustainable relationship with a decent girl, and Jeffrey and Lester into some semblance of human functionality. That was a nice touch, though for much of the series, female fans found Jeffrey and Lester predictably appalling instead of funny. If you were a guy you understood. They were just difficult. Because they had no motivation to be otherwise.

Also interesting was the growth of Chuck as a character into a more commanding, assertive, confident, and important man, therefore worthy of sexiness. The deck was stacked again, with Zachary Levi's height and good looks helping things along, and his native intelligence shown to be an asset in "work" be it the useless "Buy More" retail hell work, or "spy work" (which bore as much resemblance to reality as Get Smart or Man from UNCLE). This the female fanbase liked. There are, after all, only so many Alpha males. And everyone likes a fixer-upper, as long as it is not a complete gut job. Merely a coat of paint, some new floors, and you're done! So too was the frustrations of the super-spies (Strahowski's "Sarah" and Adam Baldwin as "Casey") with the retail hell idiocy of a strip mall environment, though Baldwin's character dealt with it better, being a man. As dominant and assertive and comfortable as the spy Sarah was in colorful and exotic settings, the mundane world was a challenge and a mystery to her. The show clearly depicted the mundane, boring, grindingly meaningless life at the "Buy More" as better tolerated by the men, who could put up with it better, than the female characters.

But the center of the show was basically the observation of David Mamet, that two people who had no real love for each other try and make a relationship; again with the Government instead of God putting them together. The relationship was unequal, of course, and in the "Knocked Up" mode instead of the "female pursuit" mode of say, "the Proposal" where the chick pursues the hot guy. Here it is the guy pursuing the hot chick. Endlessly. And unequally, since the show took three seasons for the girl to even acknowledge she loved the main character, and another after that for her to marry him.

And … if that is the view of Hollywood, on what makes romance? The view preached to every woman (and gay) watching at home? [Chuck did skew somewhat male, as this post shows, being number 4 in male skewing in 2010.] Well the nuclear family is doomed. At best, one can be a hot and intelligent woman and find herself courted by a semi-Greek God and fellow med-student. But at worst, the intelligent man finds he must constantly be proving how Alpha he is, and how "romantic," by courting the woman endlessly, forever. Even after marriage. All that time on romance means no time for family formation. Ever. If you want to look at declining birth rates, one need only look at the social dynamics created by absolute freedom. It pretty much demands all available effort be put into constant courtship and romance, at the expense of starting a family for all but the most Alpha of men.

In the show's finale, Sarah, reverts her to the cold, hard, tough assassin she started out as, via the hackneyed ("the Vow" movie) device of memory loss. She does not regain her memory, and she shares only a kiss and some laughs with the hero, before the show fades out. Given that the show required three years for her character to even have feelings and act on them, and another year to marry the guy, what is shown on-screen is a "Happy Divorce" where the girl, now back to where she was, but with more human emotions, moves on with her life. While the guy, stuck again with a super-computer in his brain, has no money, no future, no motivation (lacking critically the girl), and now no extended family/friends, since they've all moved on to other things. Given the lack of warmth, trust, or any sign of "love," by the Sarah character, the show seems to say that even when made into a credible Alpha, any real difficulty means at best a happy Good-bye (the show is titled, in typical Chuck fashion, "Chuck vs. the Good-bye.")

Fan Opinion was mixed, some loved, it, others not so much. [Most of the commenters there are obviously female, and thus a useful peek into how they saw the show.]

The whole finale was of course, a thinly-disguised metaphor for divorce. The heroine loses all feelings and happy memories for the hero, is manipulated by an outsider villain (who resembled a fat, sleazy divorce lawyer), is cold and resentful to the hero throughout, never trusts or believes in him, removes herself from his family and friends, leaves several times, and in the end shares some happy reminiscence of good times past and not well recalled. A "happy divorce," but a divorce nevertheless. You could say that the shows writers and creators did not even buy the show's emotional premise -- that the two leads belonged together and would end up together. A fairly compelling portrait of Marriage 2.o, in Health but in Sickness, for richer but not poorer, to have but not to hold, requiring endless courtship, could not have been better constructed on any show in Hollywood.


And what is frustrating is that emotionally, psychologically, this is one big fat lie. Particularly to women, who end up believing it. Does Demi Moore look happy to you? Doing "Whipits" and K2 Spice (the former is the nitrous oxide from Whipped Cream cans, the latter some synthetic weed) is not the act of a happy woman. Particularly not indulged with one's grown, 23 year old daughter. The Daily Mail reports she is being treated for anorexia and other issues after suffering convulsions from Whipits and K2 Spice. Once one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, she now looks like the picture above. Madonna, and other former beauties all share the same fate. Meanwhile soon-to-be ex husband Ashton Kutcher has no worries. Stepping right into the Charlie Sheen shoes on camera and in real-life, he's more popular than ever and has been asked back to co-star in "Two and A Half Men."

Both dramatically, and in real life, the challenge of ultimate freedom, and choice, where women and men can walk away from marriage, at any time, for any reason, makes the selection of the best, most faithful and loyal partner one can get, critical. Women in particular, since they lose attractiveness far quicker than men, walk a razor's edge. One false move, one bad choice, and there is no Second or Third Act for them. Their romantic lives are ruined, and with them the chance for most (save the wealthiest celebrities) at any possibility of a happy family life. This ought to be the real driving dramatic choice, and matching one in real life? How do I know that the last best hope I have for a guy who will stick with me when I get old and ugly is not walking past right now? That is the dramatic situation women ought to be given, by the Church of Television.

What was once the norm, the ordinary, the White Picket fence and nice suburban home (shown endlessly this final season of Chuck as the just-out-of-reach fantasy for Chuck and Sarah) is now out of reach for all but the most blessed, and shown so repeatedly on TV. The smartest of women who get won by guys like "Captain Awesome," but not those "married to their careers" (such as Sarah). Indeed the crutch of career-ism for women, and the dead-end (quite literally) that it implies, was a major theme on "Chuck." That's contrasted of course by a career. Chuck's sister Ellie, first engaged, then married, to a fellow doctor she fell for in med school, certainly has a career. But it does not consume her, rather family matters of her own, her luckless brother, desire for a kid, desire for the best for her kid when she has her, all drive her endlessly. Her job is just her job. Important but not the dominant feature of her emotional landscape. It is merely how she earns money for her family, not the endpoint of all ambition and feelings. This is why Ellie, is happy and Sarah is not. SHE has a husband, and a baby, and a career where her native intelligence and caring wisdom matter. One that requires neither coldness, nor "just following orders brutality," nor constant lying and manipulation.

Because freedom cuts both ways. And absolute freedom, and the propensity to walk away, creates Lemon Markets. One that hurts both buyers and sellers, and creates a degraded, debased market:

Akerlof's paper uses the market for used cars as an example of the problem of quality uncertainty. A used car is one in which ownership is transferred from one person to another, after a period of use by its first owner and its inevitable wear and tear. There are good used cars ("cherries") and defective used cars ("lemons"), normally as a consequence of several not-always-traceable variables such as the owner's driving style, quality and frequency of maintenance and accident history. Because many important mechanical parts and other elements are hidden from view and not easily accessible for inspection, the buyer of a car does not know beforehand whether it is a cherry or a lemon. So the buyer's best guess for a given car is that the car is of average quality; accordingly, he/she will be willing to pay for it only the price of a car of known average quality. This means that the owner of a carefully maintained, never-abused, good used car will be unable to get a high enough price to make selling that car worthwhile.

Therefore, owners of good cars will not place their cars on the used car market. The withdrawal of good cars reduces the average quality of cars on the market, causing buyers to revise downward their expectations for any given car. This, in turn, motivates the owners of moderately good cars not to sell, and so on. The result is that a market in which there is asymmetrical information with respect to quality shows characteristics similar to those described by Gresham's Law: the bad drives out the good (although Gresham's Law applies to a different situation).

"Lemon market" effects have also been noted in other markets, such as used computers . There are also parallels in the insurance market, where, unless those least likely to need insurance (i.e., those least likely to get in accidents) are forced to buy insurance, it is those most likely to need insurance compensation who tend most to buy insurance.

If you look at modern relationships, outside those of say, Ellie and Awesome in "Chuck" (akin to the Upper Class, i.e. both are "vetted" as medical students, intelligent, highly disciplined, high impulse control, and put together by an institution, in their case med school), information asymmetry, rules. People don't commit, because the cost of getting burned is high, i.e. lost time (particularly for women who have less of it) with someone else. Since it is hard to tell if a man is quality or not, superficial attributes such as styling and "hotness" tend to dominate. But over-committing to the "Lemon" (say, Ashton Kutcher), leads to disaster. Meanwhile, a car looking beat up superficially, but sound in all other aspects, tends to get devalued because the soundness in other aspects is basically, undiscoverable absent commitment.

That is the conundrum that Hollywood tries to solve in Romantic Comedies. The women don't commit, because even though the guys look like say, Ryan Reynolds, or Josh Duhamel, or Gerard Butler, or Zachary Levi, they've been burned before, are skeptical of the "market value" of the prospective mate, and approach romance like a used-car buyer while consumed with careerism to fill an empty romantic void. [Really, it is remarkable how often Hollywood shows this.] In a very real sense the female leads of romantic comedies are in a used car market. Gone are the intermediaries, such as relatives, (or med school in the case of Ellie and Awesome), friends, churches, and the like in such a highly mobile and anonymous society. Therefore, how do they get together? Their mutual best friends die in a car accident (how romantic!) and they have to raise their orphaned infant together. The INS will deport a female big shot exec unless she engages in a sham marriage. A one-night drunken stand regretted instantly by the woman gets her pregnant. A driven super-spy must provide protection and handling to the CIA and NSA's only spy-supercomputer in human form, one nerdy guy with sexy Alpha potential. The two are driven together until the real value of the (generally guy) is apparent. A girl's value is easily sussed out here: attractive, intelligent, faithful. Not much needed to discover. The man is not so easily discovered.

The show's creators understood this, since they milked it for years, as the Sarah character slowly through forced interaction with Chuck found his true market value, and fell in love with him. Obviously budget concerns plagued the show (pushing to flash-backs to save cash), as did the writers falling in love with symmetry, the Chuck character taking the lead on the beach to match Sarah in the pilot, as she not he struggles with a new situation -- marriage to a guy who loves her but for who she feels nothing, and does not believe in as a man, a spy (critical for how she evaluates men), or her husband. Laughs and a kiss as they say good-bye, so Chuck can woo her all over again. Maybe.

And that is just a lie. In a society where men can also choose at will, and walk away, with freedom just a lawyer and financial sacrifice away, re-courting is a fantasy. There is always a woman younger, hotter, and prettier, with less baggage and emotional instability, to be found by any man worth having (i.e. that other women want). Endless courting just means men won't put in the effort, and bounce around in semi-slackerdom ala Lester and Jeffrey, or PUA douchery, perhaps one interspersed with the other.

It was a cheap and easy out, for the show's writers and creators, and like all cheap and easy outs, revealing in how it exposes Hollywood's true beliefs. Fundamentally, Hollywood seems to believe that yes, there is something wrong with how men and women (largely don't) come together as they should. But its solution is endless romance, which prevents family formation. That furthermore only a blessed few, as signified generally by "correct" occupations (Doctors are seldom villains) can achieve marriage and family, without falling into the trap of Endless Courtship to validate (oh so obviously) poor self-images of their female audience.

The show did alright in the ratings, but nothing like it did once just a few years ago (which was around 2.0 in 18-34 Adults). Clearly the endless romance focus, and lack of "seal the deal" stuff with the Sarah character, turned off the nerdy guys who wanted Yvonne Strahowski as their fantasy girlfriend, without bringing in any women who wanted Zachary Levi as their perfectly acceptable "fixer-upper Alpha" to cover the loss, let alone improve upon it.

I can't remember a show before that depicted a nerdy, geeky guy as the hero. One who (for a while at least) credibly got the girl. And one that depicted the retail-hell underside of "Going your own way" which amounts to going nowhere, though in very male style. The show at its best was funny, with a lot of physical humor based on humiliating (and therefore hilarious) retail outfits the sexy female super spy Sarah was forced to wear as part of her cover. I'll miss the show, and the fantastic performances by gifted actors, who were better than the scripts most of the last few years: Adam Baldwin, Yvonne Strahowski (terrifically funny in a slow-burn way), Zachary Levi, Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin, Sarah Lawrence (criminally under-appreciated and under-used), and the great Scott Krinsky and Vik Sahay.

But its failures are instructive. It shows that Hollywood still does not have a handle on romance, in a world of endless freedom and eternal choices. Nor, sadly, does much of America.
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House Hunters International Egypt and the Romance of the Third World

Anyone watching "high end" reality TV, the "upscale" stuff designed to appeal to upper income viewers such as pretty much anything on Home and Garden TV or Food Network knows that the programming, aimed at a mostly female audience (just watch the ads), has certain ideas it caters to that reside in the hearts of its audience. Among them, the "romance" of the Third World which is seen as "authentic" (because its crowded, noisy, stinking, polluted, and most of all non-Western). Much of the self-hate for Western culture comes from a combination of spoiled boredom and a desire for more "masculine" men (i.e. sexy-dominating guys who boss them around) by an upper class female audience. HGTV is no exception, and its "House Hunters International" has run episodes on Western women moving to places like Bombay, and Cairo.

Mamdouh and Laura Raafat now live with their two children, Tarek and Hannah, in a nice, quiet neighborhood in California. They have a great house, nice careers and an easy-going lifestyle most people would envy. So why are they looking to leave all that and move to the to the busy, bustling city of Cairo, Egypt? Well, it depends on who you ask. Mamdouh wants his children to experience part of their cultural heritage while they are still young and Laura is up for the adventure of living in the ancient city by the Nile, the Triumphant City of Cairo, Egypt. But just because they've got the ambition to move doesn't mean they know where to live. So to help them navigate the real estate scene in this hectic city they've hired realtor Soaad Abd Elsalam. The Raafats have asked her to find them a family friendly condo that's near a good school. Let the house hunting begin.

Yes, a nice quiet neighborhood in California just pales in comparison to the "multicultural" and "diverse" environment found in Cairo. Even more, the show's producers figured their audience would love the episode. And they were right!

For too long, much of the Western world has labored under a delusion that life is "better" in other places. Particularly Third World places. You'll often see comments by men bemoaning Western women, and extolling the virtues of Third World women (and environments). The reality is quite different. Third World places have no real law, safety, predictability, decent hospitals and medical care, safe and uncontaminated food and water, or working sewer systems. In short, they lack all the reasons why people come to the West in the first place. They lack them, moreover, because the people of the Third World are completely incapable of constructing them. Japan and South Korea were flattened by war, with much of their people dead or displaced, yet built modern nations that whatever their faults, do not lack for: safe food, clean water, working sewers, modern and efficient hospitals and medical care. Even, functioning legal systems that while not "fair" keep anarchy and street chaos at bay.

But as much as the typical male attitude towards the compromises inherent in having a functioning nation with modern technology and all the benefits it implies, tends towards belittling Western ways (and Western women) and extolling the virtues of Third World anarchy and (presumed, the reality is much different) more deferential women, it is the media empires aimed at women that contribute most of the romanticizing and idealizing of failed peoples and nations.

HGTV has much of its programming predicated on the "romance" of dirt poor and fairly ugly Third World nations, with the network running episodes on searching for houses in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Belize, Tonga, Tahiti, Mexico. But HGTV is not alone. This attitude, of glorifying Third World failure as success, is something that you can see on almost any TV show, reality or otherwise, on the broadcast networks or cable networks. The specifics are usually, the Third World is more colorful (less dreary stability needed to keep the power on). More spontaneous too, a fiesta (or an anti-American riot) can break out any time. A "slower pace of life" contrasted with the West (where the water is not loaded with fecal bacteria, straight from the tap, and the police don't routinely shake you down). Indeed, one memorable HGTV episode in Nicaragua featured a "suicide shower" with an electric water heater plugged right into the wall and affixed inline to the shower's pipes. It was noted as typical for the region.

Naturally, the congruence with Western women's desire for a "type" of man, i.e. one colorful and amusing and dominant, with bouts of unpredictability, is no accident. Both speak clearly to a sense of wealth, power, and security. Able to trade off security and safety for "excitement" and thrills.

This seems destined to come to an end. The Third World has been coasting on (relatively) cheap energy and food that has come to an end. China's insatiable demand, loss of Western farmland to housing/development, and biofuels all signal an end to cheap food. Cheap energy being laughable even with the economic crisis, given China's own demands on the global market, and Western fantasies of "green" energy from biofuels, wind, solar, unicorn farts, and rainbows.

Cairo is a seething mass of violence now (likely the entire family is desperate to move back to California), and likely to remain so for some time. Not only Cairo, but other areas featured on HGTV: Lebanon, Dubai, and Jordan. To say nothing of Central America and Mexico.

And the impact of all the strife in the Middle East is a guarantee re-run of 2008's $4.50 a gallon for gas. A price that ensured economic meltdown as people could no longer afford to fill up their cars and pay their mortgages. The entire West has had a long run of safety, affordability, predictability, and security. If 9/11 was the wake up call, that this dominance had ended, the Cairo riots and Egyptian mess (prompted largely by fallout from Tunisia, itself a victim of food riots), is the alarm clock blaring loud rock music.

The Romanticizing of Third World failures is likely to stop. While you can't smell the tear gas and blood through the TV screen, its hard to project a romantic image of the Third World when much of it is flames. And the US looks threatened as well, in different forms. Idealization of failed peoples is likely to be stopped by reality, and America and the West's own virtues pushed larger by simple comparison.

After all, even the most bored upscale yuppie would rather live in suburban California than Cairo.






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The Teen Mom Phenom

The Teen Moms are everywhere. On MTV. At the Supermarket checkout counter. On TMZ and the other gossip sites. And their popularity tells us a lot about what drives our culture, increasingly ever focused on a tiny demographic: White female teenagers.


I’ve seen teenage girls page through fascinated, by the Teen Mom covers of the various gossip mags: US Weekly, People, Star, and so on. And why not? Teen Mom is not, so much the celebration of teenage motherhood, as it is teenage celebrity.


For those unfamiliar with the Teen Mom phenomena, it all started with MTV. Long gone are the days when MTV ran music videos, these days MTV is the launching pad for "reality" shows aimed at teenage girls. Kim Kardashian got her reality show start, by appearing in the MTV reality show "My Super Sweet 16" which featured rich girls getting extravagant sixteenth birthday parties. Her father, the late Robert Kardashian, of the OJ Simpson trial infamy, threw her a birthday party featuring her entrance on a throne carried by a bunch of shirtless Chippendale's dancers. Total cost? Around $250,000, as I recall.


Among MTV's most popular shows, was "Sixteen and Pregnant," featuring the trials and tribulations of teenagers just so situated. A number of the young women featured were spun off into "Teen Mom." The Teen Moms get a pittance, only $50,000 or so ... per season. But they can leverage the fame into appearance fees, and get paid for magazine covers. The money is better than nothing of course.

But the most important thing about MTV's reality shows is that they are not in fact, reality. They like nearly all reality shows are heavily scripted. The writers just don't make union scale and neither do the people playing characters. There are villains, for the teenage girls to hate, and heroes, and most of all, hunky guys. The storylines might as well be lifted from a soap opera, and are as obvious and manipulative as WWE Wrestling, but without the virtue of athletic performance.

If Bristol Palin was an "unlikely" rival to eventual winner Jennifer Grey on "Dancing With The Stars," it was unlikely only to those unfamiliar with the manipulations of reality shows. Every show needs a villain. A character for the audience to hate, with situations manipulated and lines written for characters to say. Both the British "X Factor" and American Idol have admitted to using auto-tune to make certain singers sound better, and others worse. Everything being driven off character, the good girl the good guy, the bad boy, the rebel, the hunk, and the edgy and hip arty girl or guy.

Obviously, some things are improvised. But the "reality" of the shows are only the reality of cheaper, much cheaper, writing and acting budgets. The fore-runner being once again, MTV with "Real World." It is important to recognize, the paucity of ideals or ideas or issues that inhabit the universe of reality shows. The show producers do not feel, and have some evidence (the popularity of their approach) that the teen female audience they pursue actually cares about ideas, or ideals, or anything beyond who is the most hunkiest? Apropos of the old Saturday Night skit "Who Is More Muy Macho? Ricardo Montalban y Fernando Llamas?"


This lack of focus on ideals, or anything beyond personality and character, is not unique to the teen female audience either. Older skewing reality shows (and scripted ones) are subject to the same focus on hunkiness versus nerdiness, Alpha versus Beta male, bad boy versus good guy, with divas, princesses, and so on. Even a relatively escapist show like NBC's "Life" explored ideas and issues: the limits of revenge, how to fight evil without becoming a monster in turn, finding peace and tranquility, overcoming various traumas. All absent in things as varied as "Vampire Diaries" or "Desperate Housewives" or "Teen Mom" or "Real Housewives."

Which does a dis-service to the female audience. While female viewers may not find the limits of revenge interesting, they certainly are interested in exploring what makes a good or bad boyfriend, husband, and father. What makes a marriage strong or weak, bad or good ways to raise children, and how to balance career, family, and self-fulfillment. That they are female-focused does not make them trivial, nor should women and girls of any age be treated as mere soap opera addicts.

Yet overwhelmingly, the focus is on celebrity, diva-esque behavior, romantic entanglements, and other idiot trivia of a psuedo celebrity culture. Teen Mom focuses on the "bad" (and also fat) girl who may lose her kid, and a "bad" girl with chaotic relationships (her ex, a new boyfriend) and a "good" girl with less chaotic relationships. All of this has led to success.

TVByTheNumbers.com reports that Teen Mom in October pulled a 2.4 in the Adults 18-34 demographic to lead all cable, with 4.1 million viewers. That may seem like nothing compared to American Idol pulling in as many as 30 million viewers during peaks. But most of the viewers are indeed, teen girls. Who just cannot get enough of Teen Mom.

If you look at the show, or the website, you will see the synopsis:

In 16 and Pregnant, they were moms-to-be. Now, follow Farrah, Maci, Amber, and Catelynn as they face the challenges of motherhood.

Each episode interweaves these stories revealing the wide variety of challenges young mothers can face: marriage, relationships, family support, adoption, finances, graduating high school, starting college, getting a job, and the daunting and exciting step of moving out to create their own families.

From a male perspective, this is about as exciting as watching paint dry, but the show cleans up among White teen girls. The tabloids do their part to make this all happen as well.

Is this healthy? Nope. Sixteen year olds are not emotionally nor financially mature enough to provide for children in today's society, which is fast paced and brutal on those without competitive advantages to put their kids ahead: good neighborhoods with good schools, safe suburban environment, money (generally meaning two high-income earners), and a two parent family with the mother married to the biological father. Teen Mom is focused first on glamorizing diva-esque behavior, by teen "celebrities" but it does in fact glamorize teen age pregnancy as well. Including the fantasy, tellingly, that teen girls can have a kid by a hunky, bad boy and then pay little penalty in raising their kid or with romantic opportunities. Female hypergamy encouraged.

But just as toxic, is the idea that being famous, or a junk celebrity, is a substitute for having professional skills that pay well, being careful and cautious in personal judgments and behavior, and that adopting diva-like behavior is something that pays off. An entire generation of teen girls are getting exactly the wrong messages. To pursue the hunky bad boy without reservation. To abandon education in favor of chasing fame. To act like a princess or diva. Disastrous messages to young women who need the unvarnished truth. That their youth and beauty will quickly fade. Choosing a father for their child is the most important thing, not the least. That children need a father, and a mother, who can both earn money to support a safe and prosperous suburban lifestyle.
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Casey Stengel Was Right: FX Develops Illegal Alien PI Series

Casey Stengel was right. Nobody can play the game. FX has announced it is developing an Illegal Alien Private Investigator Series. This is probably the stupidest TV move I've seen in decades. Worse than the now canceled Undercovers, or Chase, or even Outsourced. No one at FX has even the tiniest clue. Not only will this series fail, it will alienate the very viewers (White men) that FX wants to get. Spike-TV's new "FTW" about an undercover cop infiltrating a "Right Wing Militia" is probably close but not as dumb as FX's stunt.


During a particularly inept run of botched plays by the expansion Mets, Casey Stengel asked: "Can't anybody here play this game?" The same can be true of cable network executives.

It is a premise that would no doubt spark controversy. FX has put in development the first major series project centered on an illegal alien character, a drama from Changing Lanes writer Chap Taylor about an illegal Mexican immigrant working as a private investigator. TV and film director Rodrigo Garcia, born in Colombia, has come on board to direct and executive produce the project, described as "Traffic meets Chinatown." Also executive producing are Taylor, Dawn Parouse & Marti Noxon of Grady Twins and Garcia's frequent collaborator, producer Julie Lynn.

Yes, by all means go after the Machete revenues (around $26 million gross, not to the studio direct, domestically, against a production cost of $20 million and a marketing budget of $30 million or so). Because the movie made so much money. Then add a TV and film director from Colombia, and a couple of female writer-producers including the infamous Marti Noxon (known as the rape-obsessed, showrunner who tanked Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from Mad Men.

Yes of course, this will be a hit. Naturally, illegal aliens don't spend between $1,000 and $5,000 to be smuggled across the border, pay the money back at usurious rates of interest to the smugglers, save every dime, and don't send what little they can save back to Mexico. No of course not, Illegal Aliens are not underpaid by about 56%. Of course, Illegal Aliens make up a huge audience, lucrative and untapped, for FX. They all speak English and watch American Cable TV. Instead of maybe Univision or Telemundo.

And naturally, FX won't alienate the non-PC, almost exclusively White, male audience they're courting with Sons of Anarchy, Terriers, League, and Sunny in Philadelphia. Yes of course, America is just waiting to embrace a "powerless" and oppressed Illegal Alien P.I. exposing the "racism" of America and Los Angeles:

But Taylor says that most PI shows "have really focused on the style -- fedora, trench coat, etc. -- and not on the essence of what a PI is: a powerless individual sticking up for other people without power in a corrupt society." He points to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe who lived in the fringe of Los Angeles at a time when the city was riddled with corruption. Taylor decided to look for a contemporary counterpart to Marlowe, asking himself: "Who today is on the outer fringes of Los Angeles but sees everything?" The answer -- an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

In addition to relying on his own sleuthing skills, by being an illigal immigrant, the PI on the show will be able to tap into a network of other immigrants. "It's an invisible network of people we don't pay attention to who see everything," Taylor said. "They take care of our kids, they mow our lawns, they deliver our food, they mop the floors at our offices, they park our cars. They know if we recycle, and they know if we are cheating on our wives."

Translation: clueless Hollywood mega-idiot doesn't get that outside Malibu, people cook their own meals. Wash their own cars. Mow their own lawns. Park their own cars. Nor do illegal aliens "see everything." How could they? Illegal aliens are concerned with making money and not getting caught. They could care less about commenting or observing American society. They are often low-level players in scams, crimes, and crime-rings, from identity theft to armed robberies. And over-represented in murders.

Illegal aliens are more likely to be murderers of young women coming back for shopping for their bridal gowns than oppressed maids and such. Meg Whitman's illegal alien maid was paid $23 an hour, well over the California Minimum Wage of $8 an hour. Whitman's maid would gross about $47,000 a year, obviously a job an American would do. Meanwhile murderers like Omar Armando Loera (who fled back to Mexico) are common. One like him gunned down a San Francisco police officer, others killed Denver toddlers, and so on.

Indeed, illegal aliens, who have zero investment in American society by their nature, and come from crime-ridden, failed societies like Mexico and Central America, have almost no incentive to be law abiding and almost every incentive to be as criminal as possible while not being caught. After all, if identified the alien can simply flee back to native Mexico and avoid extradition.

I love this part:

"The theme is about helping the powerless in a corrupt society who can be from the immigrant or the Anglo community," he said, noting that a trophy wife in Beverly Hills who is completely dependent on her husband "is just a powerless as her cleaning lady."

Yes. Because Charlie Sheen's soon to be ex-wife is "helpless" with $50,000 a month alimony and child support equalling Denise Richards is helpless. The writer is just lazy, remaking Crash but without Sandra Bullock.

But "in Los Angeles and in the U.S., people's lives are built on the labor of those immigrants … "

Or, translated from Hollywood-ese, rich and clueless people (about 1% of the population) cannot tie their own shoelaces without dirt cheap and exploited labor. While the White middle class (and lower class Blacks) pay through the nose for Illegal Alien labor.

Lower class Blacks are crowded out of the low-skill marketplace, by an endless supply of easily exploited workers who are employed at carwashes and other places for about 60% below minimum wage. With no overtime pay, or safety regulations, or much of anything else in place.

Middle Class White people are crowded out of desirable real estate (would you send your kids to school with the kids of poor, violent, mostly illiterate, and Spanish only speaking folks from dirt poor Mexico and Central America)? This means no cheap, affordable, safe and close-by suburbs, instead distant exurbs to flee the crime and corruption and crowding out of daily life. With no illegal immigration the city of Bell would not be a byword for corruption in the Southland, but a working class neighborhood filled with Whites. Instead it is a symbol of the cost of illegal immigration, with the Westlake district in LA a symbol of Central American occupation (it is a no-go zone for cops and Whites) and an MS-13 stronghold.

The give-away is the involvement of Dawn Parouse, executive producer of Prison Break, Point Pleasant, Tru Calling, and Still Life, along with the notorious Marti Noxon. Neither could write or produce anything even remotely appealing to men. Neither is some guy from Colombia likely to have an insight into what appeals to the White Male audience that FX has courted.

FX seems to be now, drifting back, into appealing to what their executives and favorite writer/producers can create: status mongering stuff for SWPL women.

What is at work is the attitude that "White people are boring and have no culture." A commenter at Roissy's noted:

people go there for the culture, not the high-paying jobs. The culture comes from the diversity. White people are boring and have no culture or artistic ability. The high-paying jobs are required to live in the high cost of living. Otherwise they’d all come to Dallas, where 3000 square feet is less than 300k, and so 100k jobs seem really good compared to 200k in Manhattan to get a million dollar apartment of 800 square feet.

SWPL Central, the Colbert Report had a guest who asserted:

Wednesday night on "The Colbert Report," author Charles Kaiser was on the show to plug his book, The Gay Metropolis. Hoping to get the Colbert bump, Kaiser talked about how his book chronicles the history of gay culture and society in New York starting from 1940. One of his claims is that homosexuals and African Americans are “both more interesting than straight white people.”

Colbert: "You say that gay people thrive in places like New York."
Kaiser: "That is correct."
Colbert: "Why? Why do they thrive here in New York? What gives them power here?"
Kaiser: "Well, critical mass first of all." Colbert: "They're like a nuclear bomb. They're very, very... they're very dangerous is what you're saying. We agree on that."
Kaiser: "Without gay people and black people we have nothing but straight white males."
Colbert: "Don't equate black people and straight people. Don't just say the black people are on board with the gay thing. I know you're both oppressed minorities."
Kaiser: "They're both more interesting than straight white people. That's all."

Again, what this means is the highly feminized environment of entertainment, finds straight White guys who are beta, boring.

Much of PC, including the idolizing and idealizing of non-Whites, including illegal aliens, is because most young, attractive, disposable income women (the target of most advertisers and media companies) find most straight White men boring. Simply unsuitable. Johnny Depp, or Orlando Bloom, or Brad Pitt, or George Clooney, or even conservative Adam Baldwin, are not boring. Because they are hot, and famous. But an ordinary, non-dominant, non-aggressive, polite, beta White guy is boring.

It is pretty clear where FX is going. Straight back to the kind of thing Marti Noxon is famous for. Bashing "boring" Beta Straight White guys, going after female viewers who can status monger their concern for non-Whites as evidence of moral and therefore status superiority. Straight out of the Blind Side and Sandra Bullock. With the usual noble lies of how noble and oppressed illegal aliens really are, by the inherent racism of boring beta straight White guys, who often hit on hot women (who in turn resent it, its an insult).

Of course this will fail and die. But meanwhile it will produce one more bit of the feedback loop, of White guy being defined for SWPL women as boring and racist, and not worthy of existence, really. While idealizing the noble lie of how "exciting" and human the culture of Mexico (home of massacres of 72 Central American illegal aliens by Zetas) compared to the racism of again, boring beta White guys. Because dogfights (a favorite of illegal aliens), mariachi music, and drug gangsters are "vibrant" and exciting. Particularly for those who don't have to live there.

One more reason to go after Big Media.

Spike-TV seems intent on following the same path. Last time I checked, it wasn't White power militias sending bombs in toner cartridges, or shooting up Army bases, or trying to blow up Times Square, or flying planes into buildings, or threatening Seattle and Danish cartoonists with death, or writers. Nope. Making "low class" White guys the enemy is a straight play for younger SWPL women.

Spike is abandoning its male audience. You knew it would. The entire structure of Hollywood is anti-White guy, oriented to serving a mostly younger female audience. Even guys like Ed Bernero, who want to make male-oriented shows, find the dense network of female execs below the top guys simply impossible to get past.

Time to change the economics, to change the culture. No one can play the game, and the failure to build a broad, gender-crossing audience should be punished by Republicans to make cable networks like FX and Spike pay the full price for bonehead plays.
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