Why We Love Showtime

What Showtime does is to glamorize the failures of contemporary commoners skirting the edge of normalcy. Nurse Jackie has a soul but serves her own kind of justice while she works doubles in a NYC hospital, fueled off an affair and a little nose candy. Californication chronicles the love and mistakes of those individuals that are a bit more gifted than the average smart success story. Drown yourself in a sea of pussy, or so they say, is how Hank (David Duchovny– or are they the same character?)  temporarily gets over the mistake he made by losing his family to a pussy good-on-paper guy. Meanwhile, at Weeds, we all watch as this less-than-stellar mother parades herself around criminals in skimpy sun dresses to pay the bills. Gone are the questions we originally had, such as, when her husband dropped dead, why not sell the house, day trade and downgrade to a smaller house and fire the “help.”

What the network does it take on and cultivate work that makes the lot of us flawed individuals feel OK about straying from the pack of status quo folks that color inside the lines. The group of us semi-misfiits that worry about screwing the same person indefinitely while simultaneously tiring of the dating game. The group of us that fear coke, but smoke and drink to our heart’s content, pop the occasional doll and entertain unsanitary thoughts. These shows makes us feel OK, because we’ve already burst our own bubble.

Why are they on premium channels? Because the masses of Americans that still care about Valentine’s Day and think a white wedding will be the start of decades of bliss, they pay for our world. If we burst their bubble, they won’t spend thousands on weddings because they’ll realize a wedding and a marriage are two different things. They’ll realize that love isn’t about chocolate or flowers. And, they’ll too become the misfits we think we are so cool to have become. Too pensive, too self loathing, too mediocre, but just too scared to admit it.

So they cozy up to their Dancing with the stars, coke, Bud light and cheese puffs in hand, while we settle in to Showtime, vodka, Bud and maybe popcorn, both parties living through fake characters contrived to distract us from the boring normal lives we live about 22 hours a day.