5 ms·

The claim of the article is that we never see regular people with ordinary jobs except for "police precincts, crime-and-forensics teams and legal-medical-Beltwa

The claim of the article is that we never see regular people with ordinary jobs except for "police precincts, crime-and-forensics teams and legal-medical-Beltway dramas". The counterexamples you came up with are shows where the characters are police, politicians and drug dealers, and you had to reach back to a show that has been off the air for 8 years to even find those. Doesn't that kind of demonstrate the article's point?

CocaKoala 10y ago
An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.
- dmclain 10y ago
  I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show are very much in the classless hanging out genre the article describes. Even the consumer debt is from spending on luxury goods, which is surprising for a teacher supporting a law school student in New York, ostensibly the arrangement in the first few seasons.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.) The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.
- RyanMcGreal 10y ago
  The characters in Friends nominally had jobs too (chef, fashion manager, masseuse, archaeologist, accountant, actor), but the show centred around them hanging out, either in their improbably large apartments or at the coffee shop. In HIMYM, the apartments are still improbably large, the coffee shop has been recast as a bar, and the show still centres around the characters hanging out with only the occasional plot reference to the fact that they do things for a living.
rst 10y ago
Two Broke Girls would have been a better example, but there isn't all that much like it. (Then again, some of this reflects how much scripted shows of all kinds are getting pushed aside by reality shows of one kind or another...)

CocaKoala 10y ago

An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.

dmclain 10y ago
I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show are very much in the classless hanging out genre the article describes. Even the consumer debt is from spending on luxury goods, which is surprising for a teacher supporting a law school student in New York, ostensibly the arrangement in the first few seasons.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.) The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.
RyanMcGreal 10y ago
The characters in Friends nominally had jobs too (chef, fashion manager, masseuse, archaeologist, accountant, actor), but the show centred around them hanging out, either in their improbably large apartments or at the coffee shop. In HIMYM, the apartments are still improbably large, the coffee shop has been recast as a bar, and the show still centres around the characters hanging out with only the occasional plot reference to the fact that they do things for a living.

rst 10y ago

Two Broke Girls would have been a better example, but there isn't all that much like it. (Then again, some of this reflects how much scripted shows of all kinds are getting pushed aside by reality shows of one kind or another...)