Love That Journey For Me E-Book

Emily Garside

• Herausgeber: 404 Ink
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Inklings
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 111

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Love That Journey For Me dives deep into the cultural sensation of Canadian comedy drama Schitt's Creek. Considering the fusion of existing sitcom traditions, references and tropes, this Inkling analyses the nuance of the show and its surrounding cultural and societal impact as a queer revolution. By discussing how the show reshapes LGBTQ+ narratives from the crafting of the town itself, and celebratory influences including Cabaret, to how writer creator Dan Levy utilised and subverted expectations throughout his work, Emily Garside will showcase how one TV show became a watershed moment in queer representation and gay relationships on screen. Part analysis of Schitt's Creek's importance, part homage to a cultural landmark, this is a show that – in the words of David Rose himself – needs to be celebrated. This book is that celebration. This book is unofficial, and unaffiliated with Schitt's Creek and its brand.

Leseprobe

Love That Journey For Me

Published by 404 Ink Limited

www.404Ink.com

@404Ink

All rights reserved © Emily Garside, 2021.

The right of Emily Garside to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining the written permission of the rights owner, except for the use of brief quotations in reviews.

Editing: Heather McDaid

Typesetting: Laura Jones

Cover design: Luke Bird

Co-founders and publishers of 404 Ink: Heather McDaid & Laura Jones

Print ISBN: 978-1-912489-34-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-912489-35-0

404 Ink acknowledges support for this title from

Creative Scotland via the Crowdmatch initiative.

Love That Journey For Me

The Queer Revolution of Schitt’s Creek

Emily Garside

Contents

Love That Journey For Me

Spoiler alert!

Introduction: I feel like that needs to be celebrated

Chapter 1: A town without prejudice

Chapter 2: Queering the sitcom

Chapter 3: Wine, not the label

Chapter 4: When one of us shines,all of us shine – the town as a (queer) safe space

Chapter 5: Fashion, queer iconography and music

Chapter 6: Willkommen: Cabaret

Chapter 7: Johnny Rose and the chosen family

Chapter 8: You are my happy ending

Afterword: Best wishes, warmest regards

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Inklings series

‘I don’t have a lot to my name right now, but I do have one thing’… a good warning that this book

contains Schitt’s Creek spoilers.

Spoiler alert!

If you have not watched Schitt’s Creek, read no further! Come back once you’ve enjoyed the show.

Other spoilers:

As Love This Journey For Me discusses TV culture, numerous shows are discussed and some plot points are mentioned. If you would like to avoid spoilers for specific shows, please take note of these chapters:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Chapter 2

Brookside – Chapter 2

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Chapter 1, 2

Degrassi – Chapter 3

Derry Girls – Chapter 3

Friends – Chapter 4

Game of Thrones – Chapter 2

Glee – Chapter 3

Melrose Place – Chapter 2

Introduction: I feel like that needs to be celebrated

The year is 2020 and everyone on social media is communicating via David Rose GIFs. That’s how it felt, anyway. Lines from hit TV show Schitt’s Creek became catchphrases, ‘Ew, David’ was a fitting response to 2020’s endless lockdowns, sweaters in summer felt a sensible option, and many wondered if Moira Rose’s premiere dress was ‘too much’ for our first night out after the pandemic. Amidst it all, the audience was rooting for a gay love story as the central endgame love affair. It felt big, ground-breaking, on this scale. And it was all from a seemingly innocuous Canadian TV show that had mostly flown under the radar.

Schitt’s Creek had felt like TV’s best kept secret.

Then, with the world on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became the show everyone was talking about, the happy tonic to the reality of the world. For me, it was a show that reached out at time I needed it. Notoriously late to every party, I pride myself on not being last to this one; I spent much of 2019 telling friends and colleagues to watch it. Having lost my job, it became one of those little slices of joy to escape into. As a scholar of queer culture, I started to lose myself in the queer narratives it told (also as a distraction from my academic work on… queer narratives). More importantly, I found lots of myself, and kinship, and hope I needed, in that show. I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with it (the season two finale), the moment I knew that as a queer, academic and musicals nerd I needed to write about it (when Patrick gets the part of the Emcee in the town’s amateur production of Cabaret); but also the moments I felt most seen (David’s coming out) and most changed (Patrick’s coming out). And in what was a lonely year in many ways, it felt like I was adding some more members to my chosen family.

The idea behind the show is a charming fish-out-of-water story on the surface. The wealthy Rose family – parents Johnny and Moira Rose, and adult kids David and Alexis – lose their money and everything they own due to a crooked accountant. Except one asset, that is – not the children, as soap actress Moira asks – a town that Johnny, former video store chain owner, bought as a joke birthday present years prior.

Moving to Schitt’s Creek, they relocate to the town’s dilapidated motel and spend their first year trying to escape, and the next few building lives there instead. They don’t immediately fit in, though the town’s generous inhabitants help them rebuild their lives; though not their former lives, much better, new lives instead. Between running for town council (Moira), helping run the motel they live in (Johnny), going back to school (Alexis), and taking over the general store (David), they slowly become part of the town, and better people in the process.

The show managed to occupy a space of both slow burn hit and overnight success all at once. The brainchild of father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy, it found its home on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), first airing in January 2015. Not a network known for comedy output, it was what Eugene Levy remembered to be an opportune moment – they were looking for a network, the network were looking for a rebrand. Finding a home on CBC seemed an almost fatalistic stroke of luck that ultimately allowed the show freedom and understanding to tell the stories they wanted to.

The freedom extended to other areas: Schitt’s Creek wasn’t an out-of-the-box immediate hit. It did steady numbers of around 1 million viewers on first airing. This held across season two, which the network greenlit before the first season had even aired in another bold and supportive move. It wasn’t until the fourth season that the show broke 2 million viewers an episode. On another network the same grace period probably wouldn’t have been offered; nor perhaps the boldness of support for the their ideas – from the title that some US broadcasters struggled to say on air due to its sneakily profane inflection, to the inclusive and ground-breaking LGBTQ+ content that would also characterise it.

For many new viewers, the show and its creators had come seemingly from nowhere. Dan Levy had not followed directly in his father’s footsteps; while he had a number of small acting credits, he had moved into presenting early in his career – known for his time as an MTV Canada presenter. Eugene Levy has worked consistently but often in the background for several decades. Despite being well known to many – in particular the loyal fans of Christopher Guest’s films, or for a generation being a face of SCTV, and to a younger generation as the infamous Jim’s Dad from American Pie – Eugene Levy was, as with most great character actors, probably known to most as ‘that guy from that thing’ with a quick look to IMDB to remind them exactly what.

Despite the impressive résumés of those involved with the show, they were largely unknown to the wider TV-watching world, especially the younger actors. Catherine O’Hara, who plays Moira, shares Eugene Levy’s impressive back catalogue, being another long-standing member of Christopher Guest’s films. O’Hara’s chameleon-like acting skills were discovered by a new generation when the internet learned that Moira Rose was also Kevin’s mum from Home Alone. This, teamed with a number of the cast being relatively unknown, removed preconceptions; viewers couldn’t assume what to expect from the Rose family and the town’s residents.

It played in the show’s favour, achieving steady ratings, and a handful of awards (MTV and GLAAD), gaining some, but not massive, recognition. The move to Netflix brought the show to new dizzying heights.

By the end of 2020, Schitt’s Creek swept the board at the Emmys. It took five seasons to get a nomination, and here this seemingly innocuous show won 11, including for all the leading cast members, and Outstanding Series. All for a show that ended by placing a gay wedding – and a gay romantic happy ending, at that – at its core. But how did they manifest this? And why does it matter?

At its heart, Schitt’s Creekis a story of love and acceptance. This is what makes it a hit. Whether it’s considering what is involved in accepting who you are, who your family is, where you end up in life, or all of the above. Themes of unconditional love, healing, and family all carry the show forward, challenging conventional views of what that looks like – the idea of family in the show is actually very dependent on the idea of a chosen family, something vital to many queer relationships. Befitting of its title, the town itself is also central to the show’s message, the huge cast of hilarious and kind patrons are there to also connect with fans, casual viewers, while often ending up making some political statements in the process that you might not expect.

Schitt’s Creek saved me, and it also brought me joy at a time when I needed it. By the time I watched the finale (very late to the party this time) at one of the lowest moments of my life personally, I’d become almost evangelical in my belief that you find this show when you need it. So, just like the show gave us new queer stories and things that we needed, I wanted to tell the story of what that meant, and why that matters.

Chapter 1: A town without prejudice

Schitt’s Creek is the world Dan Levy wants to live in. That’s how Catherine O’Hara described it in an interview with The Guardian, adding, ‘And I do too.’ The idea is simple: what if these characters were able to exist somewhere free from the wider prejudices of the world? That Schitt’s Creek (the town) is a place where prejudice practically doesn’t exist is a brilliant instance of how Schitt’s Creek (the show) managed to lead by example and ask, simply: what if the world looked like this instead?

Stories about homophobia, along with other forms of prejudice, have been needed to right the wrongs of previous TV and film narratives, whether deliberately homophobic, or because it was culturally acceptable, covertly or overtly. Storylines challenging that have been a vital part of queer visibility, but perhaps the next evolution on that journey is to start imagining what stories might be told if we simply take homophobia out of the equation.

Considering some examples, we can look back to the ‘90s, when shows like Friends held running jokes that Chandler must be gay due to his mannerisms and his upbringing, or we see insinuations that Ross has ‘turned’ his wife gay. We also see Ross being upset that his son enjoys playing with a Barbie over a generic, more ‘manly’ doll, or we see him confused and conflicted when Rachel, the mother of his child, wants to hire a male nanny.

The Simpsons made a lazy homophobic joke in Homer taking Bart to steel mill The Anvil to show him what ‘real men’ look like, then finding it populated by Village-People lookalikes. Or ‘progressive’ shows like Sex and the City making light around the tired jibe that bisexuals don’t really exist. Later, How I Met Your Mother ends up constantly fetishizes lesbian relationships for Barney’s entertainment, or uses it as a running joke about friends Lily and Robin. Even ‘90s classic American Pie, starring our own Eugene Levy, has its homophobic moments that were deemed acceptable and funny at the time.

Shows that carry more representation aren’t completely free of fault either, such as Glee which fell back on clichés and problematic tropes like invalidating bisexuality. Even Will and Grace, which made huge strides for representation, constantly made jokes at the expense of lesbian characters.

And don’t forget Gilmore Girls which did not actually allow camp receptionist Michel to be an gay character until its revived episodes in 2016. In their defence, the writers did try to make character Sookie a lesbian before being denied by the network, indicating a blatant systemic homophobia in TV production. There are many more I could list.

Removing homophobic elements such as these from fictional narratives could free writers to tell other stories. If we imagine Schitt’s Creek falling foul to more tired, arguably homophobic tropes of the previous decades, we might have seen David moving to town and experiencing multiple encounters of homopobia; Patrick, who David is yet to meet and fall in love with, would realise his attraction to David despite living as a straight man, and his coming out could have been diverted, or dominated by him dealing with external judgement. Even Jake, who enjoys sexual encounters with both David and Stevie around the same time, may have spent more time fending off ignorant comments than deciding who his next ‘throuple’ might be. Thankfully, Schitt’s Creek is the antithesis of these narrative pitfalls.