- This video is brought to you by Keeps
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What's up, guys?
Michael here to talk about the only family sitcom
to frequently feature Bryan Cranston
having his body hair shaved, "Malcolm in the Middle."
Today, we're here to ask, why is the show so good
and why didn't we see more shows like it?
We'll explain it in this Wisecrack Edition
on "Malcolm in the Middle."
But before we continue, I want to give a shout out
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Now, back to the show.
Let's start by really examining
what "Malcolm in the Middle" was doing
because it was definitely something
of an outsider for its time.
On a superficial level, it was a single-camera show,
meaning it wasn't filmed in front of an audience
on a studio set and it blessedly
didn't have a laugh track. (audience laughing)
this already situated it in the realm
of not your typical family sitcom.
And while it wasn't the first show to break the fourth wall,
i.e. acknowledge the presence of the audience,
it employed the device consistently.
- Wow, usually we don't get someone storming off
from the table until after pancakes.
- [Michael] And long before it became something of a trope.
- Can you believe this guy?
- [Michael] But most notably it stands out as one
of the few shows that took a realistic look
at American life for the lower, middle, or working class.
The very real economic stressors
of raising four and then five kids in a working class family
are ever present in the show's plot lines.
There are the Epicurean ramifications
of Louis losing her job.
- It's been 10 days since mom lost her job.
Yesterday for dinner, we had macaroni and rice.
- [Michael] Or the grievances the boys have
with their student barber.
- Then we head over to the barber college.
- Why can't we go to a real barber?
- Because I like to support education
Besides, it's free.
- [Michael] Sometimes the family
is canceling a summer vacation
to pay for Malcolm's medical bills.
- Well, there goes our summer vacation.
- [Michael] Sometimes Malcolm's being accepted at Harvard
only to learn he'll have to work as a janitor
to pay his Ivy league tuition.
In all cases, though, the threat of financial devastation
looms large over the family and the entire series
in a way that you rarely saw on primetime television.
- Three or four.
- Three or four hun...
- [Michael] This is perhaps best encapsulated
by the final line of the theme song.
♪ Life is unfair ♪
- [Michael] If this struck you as unusual
when you were watching the series, that's because it was.
In scholar Richard Butsch's study
of 262 so-called domestic situation comedies from 1946
to 1990 at least he found that just 11%
featured heads of household who were working class,
i.e. doing blue collar clerical or service work.
Malcolm's father and future drug lord, as you may remember,
plays a low-level clerical worker.
This is despite the fact
that most American workers qualify as working class.
Back in 1976, scholars Gerbner and Gross
addressed the still-relevant trend calling the exclusion
of working class families from television
a symbolic annihilation of America's economic realities.
The problem is especially bad on children's television
where a scant 2% of characters
are depicted as working class.
Now, this isn't exactly a coincidence.
Showing stable middle and upper class families
is good for business,
especially if you're making a family-friendly sitcom.
And the reason is simple, commercials.
According to scholars Sieglinde Lemke
and Wibke Schniedermann,
as a form of mass entertainment
financed by selling commercials to middle-class consumers,
it seems logical that the predominant mode
of representing class presupposes middle-class normativity.
That is to say, watching the kids skins stick to the seat
in a rundown car with a broken radiator, doesn't exactly
put you in the mood to splurge
on that cool new vacuum cleaner
or a fancy bottle of cologne.
In comparison, watching the Huxtables hang out
in their brownstone while modeling
yet another sick sweater from a seemingly endless pile
brings viewers a sense of economic plenty
that they may not feel in their day-to-day lives.
Now, obviously "Malcolm in the Middle"
wasn't the first show to peddle in economic angst.
- I'll tell you what they're gonna pay you.
They're gonna pay you what all jobs pay.
Less than you're worth
and just enough to keep you crawling back for more.
- [Michael] We saw this as far back as the '50s
with "The Honeymooners" while the mid '70s
brought "Laverne and Shirley"
and the late '80s saw the debut
of America's most famous working class family on "Roseanne."
But for anyone with enough business savvy,
it just didn't seem financially smart
to make a family or children's show about bringing
your leftover egg breakfast to school for lunch.
- What do you have?
- Leftover eggs from breakfast.
- Which brings us to Disney, in a moment, that is.
First, we have to look at 1980
when a broad cultural phenomenon began.
The Reagan era loosening of restrictions
on entertainment regulations, including advertising
during children's television programming.
Now, after a major '70s-era crackdown on advertising to kids
you could only show a limited amount of commercials
during children's programming
and were also required to produce educational
and informative content for kids.
When President Reagan and co had essentially signed
or vetoed all that away by 1984, things changed rapidly.
A year after regulation, all of the top 10 bestselling toys
had their own TV show.
While child-centric product placement had occurred
during television's early days,
that was really no comparison to this new reality.
The insane proliferation
of TV character-aligned merchandising was dubbed
the Strawberry Shortcake Strategy by Tom Engelhardt.
That's thanks to the 1980 show's explosions
of licensed dolls, video games, stickers, lunchboxes,
and so on, and that reliance on branding would continue
to increase from the '90s and on as corporations realized
what a valuable consumer demographic children could be.
And though a 1990 congressional bill had reinstated
some restrictions on such advertising,
the industry had been changed forever.
Increasingly merchandising centered
on children's television characters began blurring the line
between consuming entertainment and just plain consumerism.
And we're not trying to demonize
your favorite Lizzie McGuire lunchbox.
It's just a little weird,
which is why families like "Malcolm in the Middle"
aren't the norm for places like the Disney Channel.
While they didn't start making original live action shows
until the late '90s, they came in hard,
quickly crafting what journalist Julia Boorstin
and Alynda Wheat call a tween machine
in which pre-teenagers and in this case primarily girls
were targeted through lifestyle marketing
like the world had never seen.
As scholar Morgan Genevieve Blue notes,
the marketing was part and parcel
with the programming decisions themselves,
explaining that Disney Channel personnel worked closely
with Disney Consumer Products and Disney Music Group
to extend the network's fictional narratives
across a variety of media and merchandise for tween girls.
This was in order to effectively creep into the lives
and life spaces of kids beyond the TV network.
And that's according to a presentation given by president
and CCO of Disney Branded Television Gary Marsh himself.
And the way they did it,
mostly through appeals to girl consumers.
As Blue explains, characters like Hannah Montana
promote representations of aspirational celebrity
and teen life via fashion
and dress-up and musical performances.
And this way, according to Blue,
franchisable girl star personae both reflects
and perpetuates a neoliberal turn in the United States
which privileges a performative
and celebrity-oriented form of girlhood
as the contemporary ideal.
I.e. a girl who has all the products she needs to look
and behave a certain way.
In the aughts, this often took the form of sparkly clothes
as best seen in Disney's unprecedentedly large expansion
into Walmart stores with clothing and lifestyle lines
specifically marketed to middle and working class girls.
And by 2014, Disney was racking in $3.99 billion
of revenue in consumer products alone driven largely
by Disney Channel merchandise.
The franchise elements of the Disney Channel
explains why programmers need to make shows
about securely middle-class families.
Doing so both doesn't alienate working-class viewers
while also painting a fantasy of magical middle-classdom
where money is never a problem
and consumption is a high priority.
That is to say, the family on "Wizards of Waverly Place"
may run a humble sandwich shop,
but their apartment sure doesn't look that way.
As Blue puts it, Disney's texts, products, and promotions
may allay anxieties over vast systematic inequalities.
In large part by painting an image of a world
where families aren't struggling to make ends meet.
This of course requires ignoring reality.
Like the fact that 14.4% of American children
were growing up below the poverty line as of 2019.
- I actually am worried about the future
'cause I just want us to be good and don't have to worry
about how we're gonna get the next thing
or how we're gonna get food.
- Of course, it's not just Disney
and it's not just tween girls being targeted.
Cartoon shows like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"
and "The Smurfs" were extended
through a huge amount of licensed merchandising tie-ins
ranging from films to comics and to books to computer games.
Scholar Marsha Kinder observed back in 1991
that this transmedia intertextuality effectively eliminates
any distinction between the original text, i.e. the show
and the spin-off texts and commodities
that bank on the show's success
which may be a large reason why children's
and family television typically finds its comfort zone
in middle to upper-middle-class bliss
where the biggest problem is your family photo shoot
coming out squeaky clean.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
We love these shows, but it does present
a skewed perspective of what American life is like.
As Styles Akira and Larry Ossei-Mensah put it,
television serves as a tool that continues
to mold the public consciousness in part
by fostering a single-minded interpretation
of superficial symbolism
as an indicator of status and quality.
That is to say, by basically suggesting
that the right house, the right toy,
or the right sparkly outfit can bring you happiness
and cement your status has happily middle-class,
TV reinforces a materialistic status quo.
No, no, no, no, I'm not gonna use this opportunity
to sell you on more Wisecrack swag which you can order
by going to wisecrack.co, that's wisecrack.co.
All of which brings us back to "Malcolm in the Middle."
While the show may have inspired its fair share of T-shirts,
fan-made LEGO sets, and my lifelong dream
of getting a woodchipper.
(lively instrumental music) (woodchipper saw grinding)
This series is pretty clearly not painting
an aspirational portrait of class or consumerism in America.
- I want one eight by 10 and two wallet size for 9.99.
- In fact, it's often showing
how harmful this culture can be
by examining Malcolm's insecurities
about his own class status.
In this way it's addressing a much grimmer reality,
one that millions of American children
experience off screen.
And that's what makes it so unique and refreshing.
Rather than selling an image of an American economy
where raising four or five kids on working class wages
is possible it addresses the giant elephant in the TV room.
But what do you guys think?
Are we being too hard on Disney Channel's empire
of sparkly shirts, or does the world need a lot more shows
like "Malcolm in the Middle" so that people can actually see
the realities of their lives on screen?
- We just have to hold on a little bit longer.
- Let us know in the comments
or make a dope reaction video to yell at us.
Big thanks to our patrons for all your support.
Gloss over that subscribe button
like you're painting a Disney-friendly image
of middle-classdom in America.
And don't forget to ring that bell.
And as always, thanks for watching, later.
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