Who’s Our Imaginary Boyfriend Now?

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

“To family,” Peter Krause said, or maybe it was “It’s all about family,” who cares? I assume he said either of the foregoing while raising his glass since I’ve already sort of blocked it out, and Lauren Graham and Bonnie Bedelia and Craig T. Nelson all simpered and agreed, again I’m assuming, who knows?

I wouldn’t have watched Parenthood Tuesday night, but, you know, Peter Krause. After I finally ended it with my imaginary boyfriend Chris Isaak, who had been neglecting me (in addition to losing all his sexy when he was on the just dreadful Chris Isaak Show on Showtime), Peter was there, waiting to steal me away. Plus, James Poniewozik over at Time called it funny and affecting, and he’s sort of cranky and bitchy like me. Well, James Poniewozik, I will trust you no more!

It began with an on-air plea by Krause and Graham for us to buy Nissans, so they could cart our families around with the safety and care they deserved, all very, very earnest and sincere. (I am all for getting car companies to pay for your shit, but with maybe a little less groveling?) And then I kept waiting for it to get funny, and I kept waiting for it not to have tinkling Massengill music playing all through it, and I kept waiting for something to happen besides the “off” young son overcoming his incipient Asperger’s and deciding he wanted to be part of his baseball team, because they are his “team!” and then guess what? In his very first at-bat against the mean, freckle-faced pitcher, he gets a hit! Of course he does. Because kids who wear pirate costumes to school are constantly just clocking the shit out of the ball, at least when they’ve just determined something about “teams.” What if, while everyone was watching on tenterhooks, the kid had crouched and made his strike zone really small, kept his eye on the ball, and refused to swing at anything? He probably would have gotten a walk? And that would have been awesome, and a victory? The parents would have cheered so hard? And the kid would have been really relieved? Trust me, really, I know.

Meanwhile, a little girl with a stay-at-home dad cries every time her mom tries to interact with her at all, screaming, “I WANT DADDY!” with snot running down her face, and neither Mommy nor Daddy ever tell her she needs to stop it because it’s hurtful and rude. Well then, darling, if it’s Daddy you are screaming for then Daddy you shall have! Also, wardrobe has clad Peter Krause in polo shirts tucked into his belted khakis, and it’s kind of incredibly upsetting. You know how when he’s going vacation-casual, President Obama wears Dad jeans, and you kind of cringe? It’s a lot like that. Pack your shit and get out, Peter Krause. You are being replaced, probably with the hot Korean guy from The Mentalist. What’s that, Wikipedia? Tim Kang has a BA in poli sci from Berkeley, in addition to his Harvard MFA? Well, that is sexy indeed!

So it was just a terrible show and it will probably be yoooge—because it’s sappy as shit, and people love that—but there are lots of terrible shows and they don’t usually make me want to hit someone or break up with Peter Krause. But I’ve said it before and I will repeat myself until it finally sinks in with you people: This focus on “family” and “it’s all about family” and “the most important thing is family” is clannish and leads to xenophobia and Enron, because if it’s all about family, then anything you do to support them or get the best for them is justified, because the farther someone is from your family, the less you need to consider their needs since they’re probably not even human anyway. I’m sure even Ken Lay loved his family, maybe. Of course we’ll never know now, unless we can get to Paraguay (or wherever he’s parked his yacht since faking his death) and find him.

Meanwhile, Meg Whitman is on my radio, bitching in a very reasonable tone about welfare queens and how California needs to have a “conversation” about how it was totally the welfare mothers who ruined our state’s economy, and we should probably kick them all off the rolls (but that’s letting them off a little easy, isn’t it? Needs more shaming!) because the state can no longer afford its overly “generous” benefits. Blaming Mexicans is all played out, I guess—for now—and Whitman certainly can’t blame Prop 13, the rescinding of the car tax, or the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget in this state, meaning like five Republicans can keep us from passing taxes meant to pay for what we actually fucking consume. I assume Meg Whitman will handily win. So, sorry, welfare mamas; your families are not the type we mean when we whinny that “families” come first.

Comments

Comments closed.