I don’t like the new Michael J. Fox Show on
NBC. There, I’ve said it. Does this make me a bad person? I would like to think not, yet I feel a vague
sense of shame in owning up to it. We’re
supposed to like the show, right?
Because it stars Michael J. Fox, whom we’re supposed to like because
he’s so darned likable, and because the show represents his personal triumph
over Parkinson’s disease; and because it is, in fact, a show about a guy with
Parkinson’s, whom, by definition, we’re supposed to be rooting for. Or something like that. Right?
So I’ve been trying to figure out why I really
just can’t stand watching it.
First, there’s Michael J. Fox. I have nothing against the man, but I’ve
really never cared for him as an actor, nor have I liked most of the stuff he’s
been in. Family Ties? His character, Alex Keaton, was an annoying
little precocious capitalist in a syrupy sitcom. I don’t much like syrupy sitcoms (hmm, that
may be reason #2 for not liking the Michael J. Fox Show.) Back to the Future (1, 2, or 3)? Nonsensical science fiction comedies (I’m not
big on science fiction or comedies, generally) the popularity of which I’ve
never understood – with the lone exception of the DeLorean car, which was
extremely cool. The fact that the
DeLorean functioned as a time machine, not so much.
But my dislike of the Michael J. Fox Show runs
deeper - a fact that has bothered me, leading me to question why; and here we
get into some dicey territory. Various
sources have stated that it’s not intended to be autobiographical; that it is intended to be autobiographical; and
that it’s semi-autobiographical. Well,
the plot involves a guy who returns to an on-air TV job as a news reporter
following a hiatus, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. You be the judge. Whatever.
The sitcom family in the show lives in a huge New
York City brownstone that, in the real world, would cost several million
dollars. Not bad for a television news
reporter facing huge medical bills. But
OK, all of the fictional families on TV seem to live large, so I’m willing to
suspend disbelief. So this character,
Mike Henry, surrounded by his too-perfect, loving family in his amazing New York
mansion, manages to soldier on despite his disabilities. You’ve got to respect that.
But then the jokes start. The Parkinson’s jokes. He plays the disease for laughs. Drops ketchup or something into his perfect
son’s lap, accidentally-on-purpose, and says something to the effect of “oops,
it’s the Parkinson’s.” Am I the only one who fails to find that funny?
So maybe I’m not grasping the edginess of this
particular brand of self-deprecating humor; or perhaps in coming out as one who
dislikes the show, I’ll be seen as bigoted against the disabled in some
way. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
As for self-deprecating humor, I’ve been an
active practitioner for most of my life. It’s a defense mechanism that has enabled me
to survive countless stressful, untenable situations. This may strike a chord with those who
know me well.
And as for my street cred with the disabled
world: while I have never personally experienced having a disability, I have
been extremely close to two immediate family members who have.
When I was a child, my father lost his ability
to walk following a botched spinal surgery.
This was during the 1960s, prehistoric times in terms of disability awareness. He had one of those ancient, huge hospital wheelchairs
(think Betty Draper being wheeled into the maternity ward) that he hated, and
chose instead to struggle with walking, leaning on canes for balance, most of
the time. I vividly remember, as a
little kid, Dad calling ahead to restaurants and asking whether they had more
than a couple of steps – these were days long before wheelchair ramps and such.
He’d explain his reason for asking by saying “I’m a little crippled up.” If the answer was yes, we simply didn’t go to that
restaurant. End of story. He accepted such things with dignity and
grace. It was simply how the world was,
and it was his reality. Although Dad was
able to laugh at himself in general ways, I don’t recall him ever joking about
his physical limitations. He certainly didn’t find humor there – none of us
did. He had an expression that he’d use
to describe a joke that had bombed: it was “funny as a crutch.” This was just an old saying, a colloquialism as
far as I could gather, not specific to his circumstances, but it certainly
seemed to apply.
When my daughter was very young, she acquired
several disabilities as a result of a freak accident. But times had changed
since the sixties; society had made significant progress in addressing the
needs of the disabled, and the disabled had, in turn, become much more integrated into
the mainstream. You can bet that my wife
and I became strident advocates for our daughter, working closely with our school
system to ensure that she had every appropriate accommodation to allow her to
succeed. The experience was exhausting,
often highly emotional, and to my recollection, almost never humorous.
Which brings me back to the Michael J. Fox
Show. Here the writers (and, presumably, Mr. Fox) have chosen to put Parkinson’s
disease out there, front and center, as a comedic foil. A small part of me applauds the bravery of
that choice: take THAT, Parkinson’s, you won’t defeat me, you’re nothing more
than a joke. But a larger part of me
objects. I simply don’t find very much
of the show to be funny. The
sophomorically obvious attempts at self-deprecating humor just aren’t doing it
for me. It doesn’t help that every episode ends with a homey little parable,
delivered by Mr. Fox as a voice-over, summing up the inevitable life-lesson-learned.
I half expect him to close with “Good-night, John-Boy.”
If the writers are going for hipster-ironic
edginess, they’ve fallen far short. They
might have gotten there with the chronic-neurological-disorder-as-comedic-device
if they hadn’t been constrained by the limitations of NBC prime-time broadcasting
standards, or by Michael J. Fox himself.
Let’s face it, he’s Alex Keaton, he's Marty McFly, he’s Mike Henry, but an edgy, ironic
hipster he is not.
If you’d like to see an example of this concept
– a disability worked for laughs – that actually works, I encourage you to check
out one of my favorite blogs, Smart
Ass Cripple. It’s real, and the
writer, Mike Ervin, is funny as hell.
