Do You Buy It
To bring together two entirley separate discussions, over at HitFix, Alan Sepinwall spoke with Bill Lawrence, the creator of "Cougar Town" about his wish to change the name of the show to better reflect it's evolution from a show about a woman re-entering the dating pool in her forties, to stories about a group of friends, including a woman in her forties re-entering the dating pool. It's an interesting discussion about the creative process and part of wshat he spoke about was that since episodic television, is, well, episodic, viewers need to buy in to the execution more than the premise, whereas with a movie (and, I imagine, a play) you buy into the idea.
So, I wondered if that played into the recent discussion about gay people's ability to play heterosexual characters that was sparked by a piece in Newseek. Now I recognize the Newsweek writer referenced both plays and a TV shows, but I suspect the problems were still somewhat related. For example, as Linda Holmes pointed out in her lovely piece examining the issue, it is entirely possible to view a play and be so stuck on expecting an actor to be like that TV character you are used to seeing them as, that you can't enter into the play properly. So, that interferines with your buy in. And well, since my understanding is that his issue with "How I Met Your Mother"s Barney Stinson is that he is a caricature, I suggest he probably hasn't watched much, because the character, while outrageous, has been shown to have multiple sides. And if the issue with "Glee" is that it is hard to imagine someone as straight because they sing and dance, then, again, I suggest it is not the actor getting in the way of your enjoyment.
By the way, Kristin Chenoweth - currently playing opposite Sean Hayes who was mentioned, responded here. And Ryan Murphy, "Glee" creator, responded here, and further here.
Rants About New (and old) Things
