So long, and thanks for all the snark.

I found out over the weekend that Television Without Pity is closing down.  The site will be shuttered as of April 3, while their TV discussion forums will be open through May.  

When I saw the notice posted on the site, I almost cried.  My husband thought there was something wrong as he heard me from the other room moaning, “No, no, nononono,” over and over again.  

Articles on high-profile sites and magazines, as well as the Twitverse are all mourning the loss of TWOP.  So am I.  I also echo those who say that TWOP made me the writer I am today.  

I first discovered the site over 12 years ago and immediately got hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer recaps.  I’d never read anything like it.  They were these full-blown critical analyses.  Of TV shows.  And not just the show as a whole, but episode by episode.  They were funny, sassy, exhaustive and thought-provoking.  TWOP’s recappers brought literary sensibilities to pop culture, tempering the high-mindedness with a wicked sense of humor.  I thought it was brilliant.   

Since then, I’ve visited their site nearly every day.  I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I've spent reading TWOP commentary.  It has irrevocably shaped my tastes in TV and film viewing.  When I get hear about a new show, I immediately tune in to TWOP to see if they’re going to be recapping it.  When a new season of my favorite show is about to premiere, I am equally excited about the prospect of new recaps to read, and forums to visit where people as passionate as I am about their entertainment will endlessly speculate, analyze, and dissect.  Without it, watching TV simply won’t be as fun for me.  I learned more about plot, pacing, character development and dialogue from their recaps and forums than I ever did in any writing class.  Like many scribblers, I frequently checked the site to see if I could join their recapping staff—among the likes of Jacob, the Couch Baron, Aaron, Monty, Sep, Ace and Sars.   

Not only did the site have a profound impact on a generations of writers and critics, it affected the online landscape as a whole.  Their phrases crept into our lexicon—snark, sexposition, HoYay!, and so forth.  They hilariously nicknamed TV characters and created more cute neologisms and portmanteaus than you can shake a stick at.  TWOP turned us into more discerning and demanding viewers.  It even made viewers into participants in their beloved shows, providing a forum where show-creators were known to go so they could get direct feedback from their audience.   Aaron Sorkin was famously known to frequent their forums, as did Rob Thomas and Rick Cleaveland, among others.   

Like other fans of the site, I, too, hope that TPTB will see fit to create an archive for the old recaps—which I still reread.  

Fare thee well, TWOP.  As long as there are TV shows, there will be a Tubey-shaped void in my heart.

The Timeless Appeal of the Anti-Hero

Don Draper: Raised by Hookers.  Serial Womanizer and Philanderer.  Weird, right?

TV geek that I am, I frequent forums to discuss my favorite shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones.  I keep seeing people post comments like, “This is the show’s protagonist?  THIS guy?  But he’s so unlikeable!  I don’t know if I can keep watching.”

I’m sorry . . . I thought that was the point?

Don Draper.  Pretty much every character in the GoT universe.  Walter White.  Dexter Morgan.  Nancy Botwin.  Al Swearengen.  Tony Soprano.  All these characters do horrible things-- shocking things.  We hate them for it.  And yet, we don’t stop watching—we can’t stop watching. 

Characters shouldn’t have to be likable—they should be compelling.

What purpose does that serve?  Well, mainly they’re just mesmerizing to watch.  How often are the villains more interesting than the heroes?  Anti-heroes give us the best of both worlds-- they may have good intentions, but they're flawed, crippled by desires or ambition.  Like us, they make horrible mistakes.  Often, they keep making them.  Or they keep making the same mistake. 

 

We read and watch films and television shows to step out of ourselves.  Fiction gives us the opportunity to think the unthinkable, to speak the unspeakable, to do the nasty.  If you want a boy scout, go watch Captain America.  If you want someone sweet as pie, check out Pollyanna.  But don’t complain when you tune into a show about people who lie for a living, or a medieval-style fantasy featuring broadswords.  Somebody’s going to get mercilessly whacked.

 

 

Or somebody's going to get thrown off a tower.  Especially if that someone was an eight-year-old boy who just happened to witness Jaime Lannister having sex with his twin sister.  But the man still has a code!  Also, it doesn't hurt that he looks like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

 

No one said Don Draper was the hero—just the focus of the story.  And just because Don’s the focus of the story, doesn’t necessarily mean you should like him, either.  And, good Lord, I hope you don’t fucking identify with him.  If you do, what’s wrong with you?  (Unless you grew up in a whorehouse, in which case, I'd say your foibles are understandable.) 

We’ve always been fascinated by reprehensible characters—Macbeth was not a nice guy.  He was weak and easily manipulated, and ultimately responsible for a lot of deaths.  Sherlock Holmes, one of my personal favorites, is actually the consummate Victorian gentleman in Doyle’s stories.  But he has been altered in recent adaptations to come across as a high-functioning autistic or even a sociopath because we are fascinated by the image of Holmes as a crime-solving machine with no social skills.

The Greek gods were petty squabblers and back-stabbers.  Lancelot and Guinevere were adulterers—and so were Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina.  Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Rhett Butler are all scoundrels.  Humbert Humbert is a perv.  

 

Alex DeLarge and Hannibal Lecter are hypnotic.  Becky Sharp and Scarlett O’Hara didn’t play by the rules, and neither did Jane Eyre.  Tom and Huck and Bart Simpson are all rascals.  Homer Simpson is a gross, selfish asshole who paved the way for Peter Griffin.  Patrick Bateman is a psycho.  Tyler Durden is schizo.  Even the Cat in the Hat lured children into misbehaving.  James Bond is a stone-cold killer.  And that’s why we love him.  We love our characters with skeletons in the closet, with monsters under the bed, with toys in the attic. 

 

 

Nancy Botwin: producer and purveyor of illegal substances.  Responsible for multiple deaths and imprisonments.  Burned down a whole suburb.  Also-- mom. 

 

There are happy stories and happy characters.  I like Disney and Anne of Green Gables.  I was amazed at how much I loved Captain America—I had expected to find him a boring boy scout like Superman, but he turned out to be pretty cool. 

In my own stories, I have found that the difference between an anti-hero and a straight-up hero is their backstory.  Usually, something broke them and made them go dark.  People have said, ad nauseum, that the fact that these fictional characters had awful childhoods does not excuse the fact that they’re awful adults. 

Well, no.  But it does explain why they are the way they are.  Most characters need an origin story.  History is not an excuse.  It’s a reason.  We are inescapably shaped by our experiences. 

People complain that after six seasons, Don Draper is still the same fucked-up guy pulling the same, fucked-up shit.  Why doesn't he move forward?   

Well, change is hard ya’ll.  I don’t understand why people look for redemption in these characters.  Sometimes there isn’t any to be found because often, people don’t change.  Some of them even get worse. 

Like in life.  Which is the point. 

If you’re looking for sheer escapism, choose your material carefully.  Not all of it’s entertainment—some of it is art.  And sometimes, it’s the job of art to make us uncomfortable.  That’s why it’s sometimes called provocative—it provokes.  If you want light and foamy, stick to your fucking-close-to-water beer.  Sometimes, the rest of us need something dark and full-bodied.