I will not make the claim that Shameless is the most American show on television. Mainly because I haven’t watched every show on television and in fact try to stay away from American television with BBC and the like. But…for my money, going strictly by my personal epistemological experience, yeah, Shameless…you take that cake.
It’s funny, really, because it is an adaptation of a British show, one I never watched. And like most US adaptations of British shows it has gone on for way too long just now finally winding down, closing in after eleven seasons, which is many, many seasons too long. But it hadn’t started that way. Oh no, at first, it had charm and wit and social relevance, it was funny and engaging. The Gallaghers of all ages were enterprising and scrappy and kinda cute in that vaguely unwashed way. Sure, the viewers’ credulity is stretched from the get go by casting a strikingly white family in a show about a famous predominantly black neighborhood and the creators’ idea to make that gel was to blatantly ignore the innerworkings of genetics by making the youngest Gallagher, Liam, black, because apparently somebody slept around. But still…they were believable as a white trash ensemble, they lived in a sh*tbox, they schemed, skimmed and stole to make the bills, but through it all most of them aspired to more. Fiona played with surprising zeal by Emmy Rossum for entirely too many seasons held the show and the family together, standing in for both an alcoholic deadweight of a father and a bipolar never around mother. Under her care, the kids actually did ok, considering. Lip, the oldest, whip smart had a paid for ride to college. Liam trained to save lives. Carl had a strong predisposition towards army and possibly law and order. And then someone decided, no, that just isn’t funny enough. Why laugh at people who try to improve their circumstances, when we can laugh at people happy to sit around in their own crap. Crap always wins out. Large steaming piles of it. And so, Lip drank himself out of school, Liam crazied himself out of a career, Carl repeatedly self sabotaged (although was never smart enough to know that’s the word for it) and so on. Fiona wised up and left, guess there’s only so many years a nice Jewish girl from NY can spend playing South Side trash. She was always too good for that family and eventually became too good for the show. Macy technically got first billing, but his washed up charm has only waned, consistently the butt of the joke first few seasons actually saw him expounding quite coherently on social injustices of the world in between the alcohol charged blackouts, but since then he just became the butt of it all. There’s another daughter, of course, so you can cover things like teenage pregnancies and lesbianism, but the idea that she would ever take over for Fiona is laughable on and off screen. In fact, out of the entire cast it’s likely that only Lip and Ian might get something of a career (tv and indies), Ian has already done a very good turn as a baby Joker on Gotham. So why have I been watching the show all these years? Well, by now it’s mostly habitual. The quality has declined too much to even compete with its own self, all logic has gone out of the window, there’s no consistency, it’s just about making a quick joke. The quickest and the tackiest jokes win, every time. All the efforts to (comedically) tackle gentrification, addiction, mental disorders, etc…all traded in for cheap slapstick. This is pandering at its finest. Who wants a Frank monologue when you can watch him steal couch cushions or once again pass out in his own excretions. And just in case the general dumbing down of the writing wasn’t enough, they’ve dumbed down each character individually, Reduced them to a dumb cliché, to the basest self. None of them will amount to much, none of them will even drag themselves out of South Side, they’ll follow the worst possible option of their trajectories, give in to every worst urge, deliver on every worst genetic trait. And they will do so shamelessly. And that’s what makes it the most American show there is. That pride in their own sh*ttiness and stupidity and trashiness and low class and crudeness. Their stubborn refusal to do the smart thing. It’s perfect for a country that has made smartass into an insult. Seriously, how the f*ck is that an insult? It’s a word that combines two of my favorite things, it’s awesome by definition. So yeah, Shameless, I’ve had it with you, I’m glad you’re ending so I no longer experience the shame for watching you. I’m sorry you devolved into this. You had potential, you had your time in the sun and then you overstayed your welcome (for years) by pandering in all the wrong ways. You’ve become the sort of trash that trashy television aimed for the general population tends to be and there’s already much too much of that around. And yes, I am ashamed to say, I’ll probably watch the last season if only to make sure you are laid to your eternal rest properly, though even good shows all too often get their final bow all wrong. The promo photos each season were cute, but that can only take you so far. Then again, what did you ever expect with a title like that? Really?
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