A Real Look at "The Real O'Neals"

Lent is coming to a close so that means I should get all my repenting done. 

I need to repent something on my blog.  On March 2 I posted my thoughts on the premiere episodes of ABC (American Broadcasting Company)’s The Real O’Neals.  In my reflection I moved through stages of concern over how the show would be received and what good the show will ultimately do to a “Okay, well, it’s here so let’s give it a try” mentality. 

I got it all wrong.  Mea culpa.  Mea maxima culpa.

The show is brilliant and let me explain why and what was wrong with my original views.

The biggest issue I had with the show was that I didn’t believe the target audience was going to be there.  That is, I didn’t believe that the LGBT youth who would be able to identify with the main character would actually be sitting on the sofa next to their parents and watching the show.  I still don’t know if they are or aren’t but what I’ve discovered is that it simply doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because social media has made the living room sofa HUGE. 

For the past few weeks I’ve gotten to know clueless yet well intentioned Jimmy, sneaky, underhanded, duplicitous Shannon, terrifying and judgmental Eileen, Pat who may or may not have figured out how the drier turns off by now, Aunt Jodi who’s always got her emergency child pageant kit in her car, and, of course, dear, sweet, gay Kenny.  And as I’ve gotten to know this caricature of an American family I’ve sat on the virtual couch via Twitter and watched other people get to know them, too.  What’s more I’ve watched as Martha Plimpton, Jay Ferguson, Matt Shively, Mary Hollis Inboden and the rest of the cast join in the conversation.  This is the gift of social media:  Stars were unapproachable in previous generations but are literally right there watching with you now…from a different time zone, sometimes, but laughing and joking and enjoying the show right along with you in real time.

Social media has changed how we approach television. 

But THIS is what I’ve witnessed that has made me completely change my mind about this show.  I now believe it is one of the most important programs on TV for the LGBT community. 

Last night I watched episode 105.  In a nutshell, Shannon tells her brothers that their mother is internet dating but the truth of the matter is that she’s actually looking for a job.  This leads to his siblings encouraging Kenny to do some internet dating of his own.  I won’t spoil it for you but I will say that porn and limencello lead to A LOT of great lines.  And amidst the killer one liners and the word plays come the truly touching lines that mean the world to the LGBT audience.  In a brief exchange between characters the LGBT audience can identify themselves in the conversation for similar conversations they’ve actually had in their own lives or they see the kind of healthy and functional family that they can’t seem to find in their own lives.

In last night’s episode, as Kenny sat next to his father in the car, and lamented that he was going to die alone because the relationship thing was too complicated and that there’s a lot of homework to being gay, his father, Pat, responds with nothing but support and encouragement, saying, “It’s not complicated.  Just think about your ideal person.  What’s he like?”  Kenny says, “Right now I just want someone cute to smile at me.”

How many of us can identify with Kenny’s situation?  How many of us long for the support of Kenny’s father?  I had to stop myself midtweet from commenting that I wish Jay Ferguson would adopt me because too many of us ache for that kind of support. 

And that’s when I saw it.  People were getting that kind of support.  Not only was the show validating their own feelings, seeing themselves in Kenny’s situation, but as they tweeted about Kenny’s father’s response, so many of the cast of The Real O’Neals were right there giving people that support.  Matt Shively became Jimmy, the older brother who wants to help but just doesn’t have a clue and tweeted support.  Mary Hollis Inboden became Aunt Jodi, with her whimsy and solid support and encouragement and tweeted hugs and a willingness to be everyone’s Aunt Jodi.  And during his live tweeting Noah Galvin became a mirror for so many people at that moment you could just feel the looming clouds of many LGBT people’s lives breaking up to allow a glimpse of that rainbow—of hope and promise. 

I was right in my first reflection on one thing, though.  This show isn’t about simple entertainment.  We’ve become so accustomed to the current sitcom formula in which we’re entertained by jokes and slapstick that we forget there was a time in which sitcoms carried a bit of a “punch” to them—a glimpse into real life and suggestions on how to make it through.  Because The Real O’Neals’ premise lies in the midst of a culture that has struggled for recognition and equality for so many decades, I knew that it had to be on target and address the realities of the LGBT community within the framework of comedy.  I wrote at the time that I was worried that the show would simply be known as “that show with the gay kid.”  I don’t think there’s any danger of that anymore.  I think The Real O’Neals is the show about the gay kid we either were, are, or wish we could be and the family who, along with him, is trying to figure out what it all means.  The gift is that not only does the show take the audience along this journey of discovery but the cast have gone out of their way to join the audience on the audience’s journey of discovery.

So, I have definitely transitioned from tentative support to fierce fan and advocate.  The LGBT community and the world need this show.  It’s doing something—something I didn’t expect and something I can’t quite get my head around.  All I know is how it’s affected me and how I’ve seen, through social media, the show affecting others.

So, ABC decision makers, if you’re reading this, you really need to make sure season two happens.  You won’t regret it.

#TheRealONeals

#RenewTheRealONeals

#LetsGetReal

#YouGayBro

Lessons Learned from Harry Potter

(This is part three of a blogging series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  You don’t need to read the other two to make sense of this one but you’ll probably want to read them for your own benefit.)

I’m a huge fan of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” novels.  I know that they appeal to my inner child, who has always been fascinated with fantasy stories.  I also know that the adult in me enjoys the complexity and word plays that Rowling uses to craft her tale.  And, like everyone, there are characters in the world of Harry Potter that absolutely call to me, whose own story I find compelling in its own right.  These our favorites and each time we visit them in the pages of those seven books we grow closer to them, identify more with them, and love them more and more.

Who is my all-time favorite Harry Potter character?  I think my answer will surprise you.

Professor Severus Snape.

Now, I will admit that my choice might be affected slightly by the stellar performance of the late Alan Rickman, particularly in the last two movies in which, like the final book, we see at last who this character is and what made him be the character he was.  The theatrical influence of the films notwithstanding, however, Rowling created an epic character skillfully, an archetypical persona rarely seen in literature anymore. 

Before I continue I want to offer a short disclaimer.  I recognize that the books are called “Harry Potter and….” and not “Professor Snape and…”  What I mean by this is that the total complexity of the life of Severus Snape, as a supporting character, isn’t going to be fleshed out as fully as Harry’s or even the characters closest to the Harry-center.  Some of my observations could easily be made different if J.K. Rowling would have had the opportunity to introduce more of Snape’s history or internal dialogue.  But, like much in life, including those things in our own individual stories, this is what we are given and so we use our knowledge and experience to make sense of these things.

In a nutshell, this is what we know about Severus Snape.  His mother was a witch, his father was a muggle.  We assume at some point in his parents’ relationship there was affection but that had pretty much disappeared by the time we glimpse them through young Severus’ eyes.  As a boy he meets and develops a deep and abiding affection for Lilly Evans despite her sister, Petunia’s, best efforts to disrupt the friendship and keep Lilly for herself.  The two eventually are accepted to Hogwarts where you know their friendship had to have been tested beyond what we see in the pages of the book.  Goody-two-shoes Lilly Evans from brave Gryffindor friends with the slimy outsider from Slytherin?  As the two grow older they grow apart because they can’t escape the strength of their convictions.  Lilly eventually gives into the pursuits of James Potter and Severus finds himself in league with the Death-Eaters…all the while still pining in the privacy of his heart for Lilly.  When Severus learns that Voldermort was planning to kill the Potters, he seeks out Dumbledore.  Dumbledore intercedes but in so doing makes a deal with Snape.  I don’t know if Severus Snape ever understood his relationship with Dumbledore in these terms, but it seems clear to me that Snape becomes Dumbledore’s protégé. 

Of course by the time Harry comes along, all of Severus’ anger over James’ “theft” of Lilly’s affections are transferred to Harry, who resembles his father so much.  Except for the eyes, of course. 

Every decision Snape makes in his treatment of Harry is supposed to make the reader question Snape’s loyalty to Dumbledore, “the cause,” and even Harry himself.  It’s not until the end of the saga that we understand that the decisions Snape makes are actually in the best interest of Dumbledore, “the cause,” and even Harry himself. They were all decisions based on Snape’s own experience and understanding.  We occasionally hear Snape complaining to Dumbledore about Harry’s arrogance and lack of talent and ability, but we never hear Snape complain, through any of the books, about his own lot in life.  This is what makes Snape my favorite character.

Think about it.  Snape’s childhood sucked.  Snape’s only childhood friend not only turns away from him but falls into the arms of Snape’s worst childhood enemy.  This childhood friend turned romantic love is murdered by the guy who had lured Snape to a cause he thought was right and just.  As time unfolds Snape needs to learn to live with the consequences of his actions—not just Lilly’s death but all the pain he has caused.  He’s never allowed the recognition he deserves lest his entire cover be blown.  For seven years he is confronted by a student who reminds him not only of the chief tormentor of his childhood but also the only love he has ever experienced. 

And not once do we ever hear Snape complain.

Snape never launches into diatribes or soliloquys about the unfairness of life, how he tries and tries and never seems to succeed, how he’s somehow owed and yet always denied the things he believes he has earned.  The only time we hear Snape complain is one scene between himself and Dumbledore in which Snape is arguing with Dumbledore about having to do the things Dumbledore expects from him but we eventually discover that this has nothing to do with Snape’s role as a double agent or the teaching job he’s always wanted—it has to do with promising to be the one to kill Dumbledore when the time is right.

I don’t know about you but I am not so gracious when it comes to dealing with the frustrations life has to offer me.  I have often found myself reviewing the events of my life, the rises and more specifically the falls in my story, and I eventually find myself raging at the wind that blows ill in my direction and into my face.  “I’ve done everything right!  I’ve always done the best I know how to do for those I love and who love me!  I always try to be a good person, follow the rules!...”

“….why am I being punished?”

How many of us, if we don’t actually breathe life into those five words by speaking them, at least think them when we struggle with life’s challenges?

Why am I being punished?

It is in our human nature to ascribe motive to people in our lives.  Psychologist refer to it as “Attribution Theory.”  In a nutshell, if we do something bad it’s because of the circumstances that are foisted upon us.  If someone else does bad, or does bad toward us, it’s because they’re simply a bad person doing bad things from bad motivations.  You see the difference?  If do we bad, we scapegoat it out.  If others do bad, it’s because they’re rotten people. 

It’s how Harry and so many other characters become so dismissive of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books.  Snape, in their eyes, is completely incapable of making a good decision while all of our heroes constantly struggle to do what is right.  Of course not one of these characters apart from Dumbledore actually takes the time to learn Snape’s story to understand why Snape does the things he does.  Only Dumbledore resists the temptation to dismiss Snape’s motivations as corrupt. 

This translates to the larger, intangible forces in life.  When it seems that there is no actual person behind our trouble and our misery, we ascribe this thing called “life” the same wicked motives we would ascribe someone who wronged us.  Life is unfair.  It is punishing us. 

This idea is sometimes translated into religious and spiritual teachings.  I can only speak within a Christian experience but this is just another ignorant and superstitious teaching perpetuated by the institutional church designed to keep the faithful in line.  God does not punish people.  People do enough punishing of people on their own without dragging God into it. 

We are driven to make sense of our lives, to interpret the good and especially the bad.  We do this by creating a narrative of our life, by telling our story.  We’re the main character, the hero, the protagonist.  We struggle and battle.  We win and celebrate.  We lose and wonder why.  We reach peaks and we fall into valleys.  If we can’t reason out logically the events that affect us, if we can’t access the thoughts and motives of the people whose own stories intersect ours, if it’s the amorphous, ambiguous, immeasurable thing we call “life,” we do what human beings have always done.  We ascribe it motive or place it within the purview of some divine force. 

Or maybe it just happens because life sucks.

Sometimes we get so focused on reasons and actors in the telling of our story that we forget that, even in the best stories, there are always “givens” that the reader has to accept to help the story move forward.  In life the biggest given is that life sometimes just sucks.  We aren’t being judged or punished.  We aren’t being tortured.  We are alive and if we are alive it means we have to accept the “givens” of this life. 

Life sometimes just sucks.

You see, sometimes getting caught in the narrative process, trying to divine the why’s and why not’s, we become stuck in the pain and misfortune.  The “suck” of life.  Here is the one thing I’ve learned about these “givens,” these things we accept that are without rules or rationale.  They are given to us to improve us.  Whether you want to call it luck or divine intervention or just the way it is, these tragedies, challenges, struggles come to everyone and how we deal with them will tell us how we move forward in our stories.  If we allow ourselves to be victimized by events outside of our control, to become trapped in wondering why we’re “being punished,” we miss the point. 

Maybe a better approach to these givens is not waste our time divining their origins but to remake them as characters.  They come into our lives as surely as love interests, friends, or workplace competitors.  They come to make us better.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. 

Look at Snape. 

Thoughts on "The Real O'Neals"

Tonight on ABC (American Broadcasting Company), a new sitcom premiered:  “The Real O’Neals.”  I don’t watch much television on the TV.  It’s the 21^st century; I stream and do on-demand when I’m in the mood to watch something.  It just happened that I found myself in front of the TV tonight and caught the first episode of a show I only heard about two days ago online. 

But before I get into it and share my thoughts on the show, in the interest of full disclosure I need to point out how ironic it is that in 2016 I’m watching a show that stars one of my very first “movie star crushes” from 1990.  Yes, I’m talking about Jay R. Ferguson.  Here’s a blast from the past.

This is Jay Ferguson as Ponyboy Curtis in FOX TV’s 1990 series “The Outsiders.”  It was the eyes, man.  Look at those eyes.  My teenage self was mesmerized. 

Hold onto this fact for a bit.  I’ll be coming back to it.

So the set up for “The Real O’Neals” is this:  The ideal, normal Irish Catholic family struggles to realize the fact that there is no such thing as normal as family members confess a series of real life issues and struggles:

Jimmy (the older son) is anorexic.

Shannon (the daughter) is a thief.

Kenny (the younger son) is gay.

Mom and Dad are getting a divorce.

So, yeah, that pretty much undermines any sense of “normalcy” in the classic understanding of the good Catholic family. 

Let me be honest for a moment.  I caught the previews for the show two days ago.  They grabbed my attention.  I sat down tonight and watched the first two episodes.  My initial concern was that the show was going to define itself too narrowly as “that TV show about the gay kid.”  What frustrated me about the creation of a show that attempts to normalize the experiences of LGBTQ youth and the whole coming out process these kids go through and the journey their families inevitably take in their acceptance of the reality of the child’s identity—what frustrated me was that, in my mind, the target demographic wouldn’t be sitting down to watch the show.  LGBTQ youth find their normalizing figures and heroes online and not on the television.  Why?  Because this generation of LGBTQ youth look for honesty and connection.  They’re not going to be satisfied with an actor’s portrayal of a struggle that is very real for them.  They will see through a perfectly cultivated and manicured script that, by the end of the half an hour, will solve all of the character’s problems and everything will come up puppies and unicorns.  They see through the Hollywood tricks. When the struggle is real for you, watching it acted out by professionals with scripts that not only solve real problems LGBTQ kids face but solve them by making the LGBTQ characters witty and perfect—it isn’t entertaining.  It isn’t comforting.  It complicates things even more.  It presents yet another impossible ideal for them.  They would much rather log onto YouTube and listen to real stories from the trenches than sit down and watch a romanticized version of a life that doesn’t exist. 

So I worried that the show was going to do more harm than good.  It wasn’t going to reach what I felt was the target audience. And when it would get canceled its critics from the religious and political right would celebrate its demise as demonstrative of how “America isn’t interested in those values.”

And then I started laughing at Martha Plimpton’s comment about “pity pork” in the second episode and I found myself relaxing and rethinking my initial cynicism.  I found myself enjoying the writing more and more.  I started appreciating the individual performances of the brilliant cast.  And then my brain made a connection:  Comedy comes from pain. 

Now, I’m not necessarily talking about dark comedy and gut-wrenching pain.  I’m talking about the fact that as human beings we tend to use comedy to move us through painful times in our lives.  We tend to use humor to soften the edges of our agony and hurt so that our story becomes more bearable.  Imagine what it would be like if we weren’t able to laugh in those dark times. 

Let me give you a quick example that has absolutely nothing to do with “The Real O’Neals.”  My grandmother (the mother of my mother) died from cancer in 1993.  My mother, my at-the-time-very-pregnant-aunt, and my great aunt all went on a road trip to see the best cancer doctors in the area.  They were all in the room with my grandmother when the doctor shared the news that the cancer was terminal and there was nothing that they could do.  My aunt had to leave the room; she was so emotionally distraught.  My grandmother, a few minutes later, followed her out into the hall and said, “You’re ruining all the fun, you know.”  In that moment, my grandmother’s sense of humor broke into a very painful moment to remind my aunt that there was more to their time together than this horrible moment.  My aunt still laughs when she shares this story.

I think that’s what “The Real O’Neals” might be attempting to do.  This isn’t a how-to show.  It’s not like we’re going to tune in to Jay Ferguson, Martha Plimpton, and Noah Galvin to tell us how to navigate issues of marriage, religion, and identity like we would tune into Nicole Curtis on DIY to show us how to sand a window and mount it in the wall.  This is a comedy in the traditional sense:  It’s trying to communicate something through humor to address the pain and struggle many folks experience in their day to day lives. 

That’s when it kind of hit me.  Though I stand by my first reaction (that most LGBTQ kids aren’t going to be on the couch watching this show because it’s in their nature to want something real and not massaged like a sitcom), I realized where my negativity was actually coming from.

And this brings me back to my teenage crush on Jay Ferguson.

When I was a kid and was “forced” to sit and watch “The Outsiders” because my sister was obsessed with the show, I remember to this day the panoply of emotions that tore through me.  It wasn’t just a matter of watching this “hot guy” with killer eyes but it was the struggle of knowing that, in that place and in that time, that kind of attraction was not “normal.”  I would have killed to be able to sit on the couch, even in the silence of an inability to come out, and watch a family struggle to understand there is no such thing as normal even within the context of religion and identity.  Just watching it would have softened the edges of my agony and hurt.

Truth be told, I am still a little worried that “The O’Neals” may end up narrowly defining itself.  But I think I’ve come to a place of appreciation for the show—or at least the first two episodes.  What I think would be interesting is to see how many coming out stories follow the #TheRealONeals hashtag as the show moves forward.  How many LGBTQ youth might actually find the courage to turn to the adults in their lives and say, “Kenny?  Yeah.  That’s me.”  And hopefully the adults will be able to turn to their kids and, even in Martha Plimpton’s Eileen-way say, “I love this project.  I’ve known this project since it was a little project.” 

God knows too many of us should have had opportunities like that when we were growing up rather than suffering in silence.  So even if “The Real O’Neals” does end up narrowly defining itself, at least it’s here now, helping to bring attention to the struggles of LGBTQ youth and their families, and normalizing the struggle of telling their story.