TV by Politics

I came across this post from Entertainment Weekly today about the TV preferences of Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans (categorically), and it made me chuckle. Not that it's any of your business, but I would consider myself a moderate Republican, right-leaning on fiscal and defense policies, and left-leaning on education and many social issues.

Apparently, though, I watch TV like a liberal Democrat. According to the survey cited by EW.com, left-wing Democrats tend to like "'sarcastic' media-savvy comedies and morally murky antiheroes", while these shows tend to turn off right-wing Republicans, who generally favor "serious work-centered shows" and reality shows instead. EW doesn't provide a link to the Experian-Simmons survey in the post, but I would also be curious to know the ages, income, and education levels of the participants. The categories are pretty black and white, but it's still interesting nonetheless to see where one's preferences tend toward.

Among the shows used as examples of Democrat-friendly fare are 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation (two of my favs!), The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Treme, The Office, and even Parenthood; while the examples of Republican-friendly shows ranged from The Deadliest Catch (one of my parents' personal favorites) to Dancing with the Stars to crime procedurals like NCIS and Castle.

My preferences land mostly with the Dems on this one. Give me something I can bite into: a sarcastic comedy sans laugh track, or a drama with lots of gray areas. A good anti-hero has more to teach me about the life, humanity, and the Divine than a boring archetype, anyway. That's what art should do, right? I would like to note, though, that like my Republican counterparts, I have a very strong dislike of Treme, Weeds, and The Big C, which can only be explained as an aversion to premium cable shows that make me feel icky.

Out of curiosity, reader, where do you land on the not-so broad spectrum painted out for us here?

The End of "Big Love"

This is a short note to commemorate the ending of one of my favorite shows on TV, Big Love, which airs its series finale tonight on HBO. On one hand I'm glad that the showrunners decided to leave the show on its own terms, during what seems to be one of its best seasons (seriously, if you haven't watched last week's episode "Exorcism", you only have yourself to blame), but I'm of course disappointed not to see a continuation of the Henricksens' fascinating story, which to me feels by no means finished (in the TV sense, that is).

I’m also really disappointed that this brilliant show is ending with no Emmys and only one major acting award (Chloe Sevigny rightfully upset Jane Lynch at the Golden Globes in 2010), but maybe it’s a testament to the complexity of the drama that it didn’t appeal to everyone. For me, the most fascinating thing about this show is the way it managed to take an “icky” topic like polygamy and turn it into a catalyst for the kind of anti-hero family drama that makes BL so gripping. The show was never about polygamy. In the broader sense it's about the First Amendment, but perhaps more compellingly, it focused the relationships at the center of the drama and on the wonderfully multifaceted characters at the heart of the show. Last week's episode "Exorcism" demonstrated this as well as any episode we've seen, in that in the midst of the Henricksen's social and political isolation, the show focused on the personal struggles of each main character. I don't know about you, but the more I learn about these characters, the more I feel like there's more to learn.

I'll probably post something about the finale later this week, when I get past my BL-is-ending-oh-no! depression. It feels like a TV conspiracy that we're losing Friday Night Lights, LOST, and Big Love in the span of a year. If Fringe or Southland gets canceled, I'm gonna freaking lose it, y'all!