Rural

I remember learning in junior high school that the hallmark of American literature was “rugged individualism” and not really having a handle on what that meant, aside from knowing instinctually that it must be either a vast overgeneralization, or so vague as to be almost meaningless.   But a few relatively recent shows have embodied a particular kind of rugged individualism that seems to me to be intertwined in interesting ways with notions of gender and the difference between rural and urban.  On one hand, these shows embrace a particular norm of maleness that involves physical prowess and sexual compulsion.  On the other hand, they embrace a particular norm of femaleness that’s not only flirty, but also flinty.  The culture is often superstitiously religious, and racially unenlightened (to say the least), but it also embraces an odd kind of respect, and even appreciation, for difference. 

These shows are all pretty violent and their characters often conspicuously unintelligent or short-sighted.  To the extent that’s related to their rural settings, it bothers me, and I have an itching feeling it is.  It’s as if the producers know that even in the information age, we believe that metropolitan and cosmopolitan are the same things—but also that the metropolitan has lost a certain kind of maverick authenticity.  I’m not sure either is true.

Outsiders (WGN, new Winter 2016.  Drama.)

Watched: Season

Premise:  Culture clash within and between an insular clan of moonshine-making homesteaders and forces of corporate “civilization” in rural Kentucky.

Promise:  The show is aptly named for its subject matter, but the recent proliferation of “out” shows (Outlander, Outsiders, Outcast) made it seem nondescript.  In execution, it’s anything but.  It tells personal stories of characters who are out of step with typical civilization but easy to identify with, but at the same time, it tackles big Shakespearean themes of pride, loyalty, supersitition, succession. It’s a battle for hearts and minds within the clan and between the clan and the coal company that wants their land.  It asks questions about the nature of family and what it means to be civilized.  Its women are mostly devious and its people of color are mostly ancillary, but I find myself less bothered by that than I’d expect, partly because it’s in the nature of the story it wants to tell.   And all of its people—as different as they may be from you and me—seem like people.

Verdict:  Excellent show.  WGN really knows how to pick’em.

Hap & Leonard (Sundance, New.  Heist drama.)

Watched: season 

Premise: Buddy outlaws get involved in a lost-treasure heist in late 1970’s rural Texas.

Promise: Based on the books of the same name.  It’s a fine heist, but the heist is almost in the background of the personal tale of an unlikely friendship between a white, straight draft-objector and a black, gay, Vietnam vet.  Hap and Leonard are both well-realized characters, and their friendship is the kind of devoted partnership I tend to find compelling.   A shame that the only female character to speak of is Christina Hendricks playing a femme fatale—Hap’s“weakness” made flesh.  But over the season she becomes a more interesting and complex character than she seems at first, and the story as a whole is a sometimes-sentimental, sometimes-quirky, noir-inflected yarn.

Verdict: Good rural noir.

Preacher (AMC, new.  Supernatural drama.)

Watched:  season so far

Premise: A supernatural event gives a rural Texas priest strange power and renewed faith; his violent ex-con girlfriend and (literal) vampire best friend contend with the change.

Promise: Based on the comic book of the same name, this is one of the most comics-y shows I’ve ever seen.  (Even more than iZombie!)  It really embraces the absurdity, grotesquery, and tableauish nature of its genre in a way that even the superhero shows don’t do.  You can almost picture the story told in still images and word-balloons.  And that’s quite a task:  Many have tried to adapt this property but this is the first to make it happen; I can see why it’s so difficult.  The characters are mostly awful people and they do cruel, unsympathetic, often disgusting, things, and yet somehow they’re still intriguing.  Most of them are unintelligent, yet you somehow want to know what they’re thinking.  I think the trick is that everything is so backwoods-weird that nothing seems remotely believable, so you can just float along with it.  It does embrace pretty much every awful stereotype of superstitious, unintelligent Southern hicks, but considering how ridiculous the whole thing is, they don’t really stick that much.  And Ruth Negga, playing the wisecracking criminal ex, is fantastic.

Verdict:  Against the odds, I’m enjoying it.

Outcast (Showtime, new.  Horror.)

Watched: First two episodes

Premise: In rural West Virginia, a man tries to puzzle through why people around him seem to be getting possessed by demons.

Promise:  The show feels very dreamlike, as we weave through the main character’s life in present day and flashback.  But perhaps because of the dreamlike feel, I found it hard to connect with the story or understand the stakes.  The women on the show mostly fit into the mother/caretaker and/or victim roles.  I appreciate the show’s attempt to create genuinely frightening moments and to demonstrate how the church can fill a comforting role in the faces of unexplained forces.  But the underlying themes seem to rotate around the trauma of isolation, and just don’t grab me.  

Verdict:  Didn’t work for me.

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  Colony, Billions, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Underground, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, The Girlfriend Experience, The Last Panthers, Houdini & Doyle, Feed the Beast, Cleverman, Guilt, BrainDead, Animal Kingdom, Greenleaf, American Gothic, Queen of the South, Roadies