It's A Popularity Contest

When we watch TV, those of us who are elitist pop culture aficionados, we seem to always be watching stuff that’s on the verge of cancellation or on the fringes of the ratings scale. We all pined for Arrested Development when it was prematurely shut down before it could even get through a full third season. But it went out like a champ, at least creatively, and reemerged seven years later as one of the most anticipated television events of the year. Among a very small portion of the population. So small that none of the networks wanted to touch it all this time so it had to go to the at-the-time uncharted waters of Netflix. Supposedly it caused a huge spike in subscriptions for Netflix but they don’t have to report their viewership so we don’t really know if that’s true. If we go on Twitter or talk to our friends or read blogs from people who live in LA or New York, shows like Mad Men and Girls dominate the conversation but the truth is, the general public does not watch those shows. If any of the shows on AMC were on a network, they would have been cancelled long ago. People watch and ABSOLUTELY LOVE shows like The Big Bang Theory and procedurals like Law & Order. The general public loves catchphrases and familiar titles. Do you know who Cote De Pablo is? Of course not. She is the star of NCIS and she will be leaving the show this season (its 11th)* and people are FREAKING THE FUCK OUT about it… but the people who are worrying about it are blue collar, middle aged and elderly people in the suburbs who don’t tweet or have pop culture blogs. Is she a good actress? Is NCIS a good show? The answer is probably not, at least not by the standards that the young, upwardly mobile, bi-coastal, Twittersphere judges pop culture by but CBS and Ms. Pablo are laughing all the way to the bank. There’s a reason they’re called “procedurals,” because they follow the same formula, the formula that people like, the formula that draws eyeballs and sells ad space. We are in or possibly coming out of the so-called Golden Age of Television. The shows that are on the Mount Rushmore of TV are over and the remainders are yet to be proven. Justified and Mad Men will go for a few more years and Game Of Thrones and Homeland will stay on and win some Emmys and then fade away but there will be multiple iterations of these bland procedurals to satiate the mass viewing public for years to come. Reruns of Two And A Half Men and sports almost always beat out what we have left standing in as quality TV. Will my parents ever care about what Don Draper‘s fate will ultimately be? Fuck no. But do they watch reality tv about rednecks who hunt for things in swamps? Yes they do. Personally, most of my favorite shows get cancelled** but there are more reality programs than ever and they’re taking over precious airtime like a plague.

This is nothing new, it’s not a novel argument, the distinction between popular things and quality thins has always been wide, for the most part. An article in Esquire cites some comparisons, the Duck Dynasty finale last season which drew 10 million viewers compared to the Mad Men finale that drew only 3 million and an unfunny midseason episode of The Big Bang Theory that drew 20 million viewers while shows from comedic geniuses like Louis C.K. and Amy Schumer have to be made for pennies because they’re always on the bubble. That article is much more interesting and in-depth than this one but I just used it as a jumping off point to start a conversation. This argument always comes up around Oscar season, as people wonder if any of the nominees will actually make any money.*** It’s not out of the ordinary for studios to spend more money on advertising campaigns for Oscar consideration than the films grossed or cost to make because acclaim is what keeps them going if they can‘t bring in superhero money. Hollywood stars aren’t the draw they used to be because by now, those stars are reluctant to jump aboard established franchises because they think their name and face is still the draw but franchise sequels are the only movies that make money nowadays. They can win Oscars by doing gritty indie films but studios would rather pay a newcomer a few dollars to be the face of an already established franchise because paying $20 million to Will Smith isn’t worth the risk anymore. A theater like Laemmle that is supposed to specialize in art-house and independent cinema rarely does, at least in Claremont, because art-house and independent doesn’t sell. There’s a reason we only show documentaries and foreign language films, films that will probably be shortlisted for Oscars, twice a week while The Lone Ranger gets 21 screenings per week. Even though people claim to like smaller films, they really don’t, but good for them for pretending to. Maybe they’ll stumble upon something good by accident on Netflix. The movies that sell tickets and popcorn for Laemmle are low to mid budget passion projects headlined by Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep that don‘t make a splash at the box office. Sometimes a film breaks through and makes a star out of someone but it’s rare. Most indie films open in New York and LA and if they do well MAYBE they’ll screen for our friends in Omaha or Fargo a month later because nobody in Omaha or Fargo knows who Ellen Page is until Juno comes to the local theater. Theaters and television networks are businesses and as much as we hate seeing shows we like get the axe and shows we hate, or worse, don’t care about at all, thrive, we wouldn’t have anything at all if they weren’t around. That’s why the old model keeps being used, the same reheated jokes and premises keep being served up, the same shows keep getting spin-offs, the same movies keep getting remade and sequelized: It’s not worth the trouble to try something new and they want to stay in business. Most people eat the same food every day, date the same kind of people over and over again, maintain the same routine because it works and it’s comfortable and it’s easy. When people break out and try something new, we get interesting art and it gets us talking and that’s when the magic happens.^

*Do you really think Louie will get 11 seasons?
**A list that includes such gems from the past few years as Happy Endings, BFF, Apartment 23, Bored To Death, The Killing and Terriers just to name a few.
***When I say “people wonder” I don’t mean people I know or talk to because nobody I know or talk to cares about box office grosses or awards shows or Hollywood trends so I have to get my info online and skirt that world via podcasts and the internet. I'm aware that nobody I know cares about this stuff but for some reason I think about it a lot and write blog posts expecting people to read about it.
^That was the most cliché sentence I have ever written.