People are struggling financially. Even on TV.

Let's define some terms. What is Broke TV and what shows fit into this description? This is maybe like a little bit inside our journalism, but around the midway point in the year, they asked me to come up with like a list of three or four shows that were my favorite of the year so far. And I noticed that they all happened to deal with essentially downward mobility. And I think like specifically, in a lot of cases, the downward lead mobile middle class. And it's a little bit different because obviously so much of pre-seached TV in the last, I don't know, 10 to 15 years has been dominated by like the super, super, super rich. And of course, we've television has like a fairly long tradition of working class families for the most part. So BroTV was sort of like my attempt at trying to talk about like this sort of like kind of novel focus on the downward lead mobile middle class. Times are hard. A lot of us have reached the devastating realization that all the so-called markers of middle class success, funding and education, buying a home, saving money, don't really line up with our economic reality. And Hollywood has noticed, according to television critic at the New Yorker Ingu Kang, the era of watching the super wealthy on television is over. And in its place, BroTV. Today on the show Ingu joins me to unpack how our financial instability has trickled down into our entertainment. And the comfort or lack thereof, this entertainment provides. Ingu, welcome back to it's been a minute. Hi. Thanks for having me. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Loose, and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Could you give me some examples of some shows you feel like really, really fit this definition? Yeah, I don't think that there's a show that does it's better than the second season of Beef. It is very much about class. It is about the working class and the middle class sort of being maybe upper middle class like being pitted against each other. And it is also very much about this sense that you feel like because you've made it to a certain place. Things should be okay for you and they're really not. And maybe part of it is your fault. Maybe part of it is just that the system is rigged against you. But I think that is so much like a core part of that show. And the other show that I really wanted to focus on was The Comeback, which is about a former sitcom actress who sort of gets like one last hurrah in her business as like a 60 year old trying to make it in the world of sitcoms, which is really becoming like an endangered species in television. And she is working in a industry that has sort of like speed run through like the sinking of the middle class that we have been talking about. So those were the shows I really wanted to focus on. I feel like I would probably be remiss not to mention Margot Scott Money Troubles because I know that was like a really popular show. Oh yeah on Apple TV I watched that. But I did not like that show. And so I did not want to focus on it. I think it's a little bit too Cinderella-y and it's idea that like only fans can come in and sort of like swoop you away from all of your money troubles. But I do still think that a lot of the issues to your point that the main character faces do kind of fit into this category of somebody who is working class and has a kid and traditional work is not going to cut it. It needs to figure something out. There are a lot of words that you could have used to describe the state of not having a lot of money. Why did you decide to go with broke TV as the descriptor? I mean it's sort of in contrast to I don't want to say poor TV. But it is very much about having reached like a particular level of the middle class but then also feeling that slip away from you, right? These shows also feel to me quite a bit different from other class conscious shows we've had in the past like say May or the wire where it is specifically much more about people who are entrenched in poverty or some state of not being able to enter the quote-unquote official economy. And talking about all of these institutional failures that keep people down. I don't think that sort of like what these shows are really focused on. And the other like feeling or vibe that broke TV kind of gets at is the idea that you know brokenness is kind of like a feeling and a lot of these shows that I want to just talk about really focus on the emotional aspect of what it is like to feel like your status is slipping away. One of the things that it maybe think about was the fact that like broke like moreso describes a temporary state rather than an entire social class that you are possibly like born into or might stay at or whatever like I feel like it can encompass a wider range of people like not everyone has experience poverty or will experience poverty but anybody can go broke you can have a lot of money and go broke you can have a little money and be broke or to your point you can have had a moderate amount of money and like and made it work and then feel that slip from your grasp. And it just seems like it's a descriptor and an experience that a lot of people can relate to. Sometimes it's not your fault and sometimes it kind of is your fault. I sort of like I will say that sometimes I've been broken it was 100% I think that is a part of it. The reason why I love that second season of beef so much is that you know there is a country club manager and his wife who are played by Oscar Isaac and Carrie Mulligan and they have all of these grandiose ambitions for what they want their lives to look like and they are probably like living in a house that they shouldn't have bought they keep telling themselves they absolutely should have bought. And they're like it's like at the houses and varying states of like renovation they're constantly having these bitter awful fights about it. It's like it just feels like maybe if you hadn't have felt like you needed to buy this house a lot of the problems you don't have and would not exist. Yeah, but I think a part of that middle class down with mobility is that it comes with a sense of like this economic dysphoria rate and I think like that is what those characters are so great at conveying. If they have this like really like grand idea of what they want their lives to look like their finances don't match that and they think that if they just like figure out one weird trick they are going to be set for life and they just never get there. And I kind of like that broken encompass like not having enough and also spending way too much and living outside your means and that also kind of being your fault and I like that we can have that great in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I'll say this isn't the first time that that class drive has been the focus of TV creators. I wonder what makes this era unique? I feel like so much of it feels like a pull away from the focus on crazy wealth. Your successions is your billions big little lies. But like I wonder if part of it is also that Hollywood writers are more willing to explore this because they themselves are going through it firsthand since the entertainment industry is going through this moment of like really brutal economic transition for a lot of the course. I just feel like, you know, how many times are we going to watch shows about, you know, really rich people being really awful? I mean, I get it. And also, I feel like there used to be this period of time where generally if you were super rich, you were fine being super rich and living your life and that was fine. And now we're in this bizarre period in history where because these people can put their thoughts and their faces in our faces all the time that is absolutely what is happening. And I feel like they're essentially showing us constantly like what we don't have or like if these people paid their fair amount of taxes, we can probably have like a better society. And the fact that they are putting their hoarding of wealth in our face, I think also sort of for me at least, least to the sense of like, okay, so like really rich people are bad. I need something more in my narrative, like give me some sort of like nuance. And I feel like we've just kind of run through like all of the different iterations of that. Like rich people, bad that, rich people, bad stewards of society, rich people, I [BLANK_AUDIO] with the Guild of the Age throw great parties, but like are pretty unhappy. - I think it was easier to sort of create a more comfortable distance between our reality and the evil billionaires were watching on TV. And like you mentioned, over time, that path has worn down. Now, there are plenty of people who never liked those shows in the first place. But to your point, it's worn thin. It's harder to create that imaginary distance, I think at this point. - Yeah, and I think, you know, if we've learned anything about pop culture discourse in the last 20 years, like we want representation, and I think that there is something really potent right now about the anger of the downwardly mobile middle class. I think the rise of the DSA is probably like the, or example of that. I heard recently that if you look at their ranks, it is generally, I think the phrase that I heard recently was the downwardly mobile, super educated folks that make up the DSA. And so, I think if we want to have any sort of television that wants to be challenging, wants to do something that's not just escapism, I think part of it is to sort of like being confronted with the, I don't know, the low grade hum of bleakness that is like in a lot of our lives, or in the lives of like a lot of our friends. So yeah, I'm glad that writers seem to be taking up this particular mantle. - We're gonna take a quick break, but first, if you're a longtime listener or brand new to it's been a minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know you can make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app, whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today. Coming up, after the break. - The more soap operatic they're antics get, the more sort of like weirdly logical it all feels, because how else are any of these people supposed to get ahead in life? - Stick around. (gentle music) - I'll say though, in your PC, you also know that many of the characters depicted on Brook TV are not, they're like different though, than like the Roseanne variety, where they're like on Roseanne, the characters, working class background, and like homespun comedy, we're like the point of the show. Brook TV, like to your point, is about status anxiety, resentment, and as you say, the quote, perspectives of those who fundamentally believe they should have more. Why do you think that specific attitude is so prevalent on TV right now? This is like not just about having a lot of money or a little money, and maybe accepting that, and sort of like, I don't know, just a fact of life, as on Roseanne, it's like the characters and situations that you're talking about, the characters and storylines that we're talking about, there is agitation there, resentment. I mean, I feel like that's fundamentally sort of where we are. I mean, this is maybe like reaching a little bit, but-- - Reach, we love it. (laughs) - We love it. - I remember in like the depths of the pandemic as the Biden administration was rolling out all of these different programs and these different initiatives. People were looking around, and they were like, wait, we have the resources to actually provide this, to provide loans to small businesses, to provide some sort of safety net for people, and we just hadn't been doing it, but I feel like there is a sense that like, we should expect more from our government, we should expect more from a economy that is purportedly doing well if we're going just by the numbers. And I, as much as like, there is some sense of entitlement in this belief that like, oh, I should be doing better by now, I think that the sense of constant insecurity, the sense of like one stroke of like bad luck in your life could like really devastate you. I think that that is real. You know, if we want to talk statistics, I think some like tragically large percentage of Americans can't come up with like a $400 emergency bell. And I don't think that's just like, you know, like the most marginalized among us, I think the sense that like, if we reach the certain amount of education or if we had a certain number of years within our, under our belt, with our careers, like that should provide us with like, some sense of stability. And I think with the, in the flesh and crisis, with the affordability crisis, I think people just really feel like the rug has been pulled from under them. And so I think that there is this sense that the class war has been waging against pretty much everyone who's already a billionaire. And so yeah, of course, like all of this stuff is going to gradually be channeled back into art and entertainment. - What you're describing reminds me of a conversation we had recently on the show with author and professor Dylan Gottlieb. He wrote a book called Yuppies, the bankers, lawyers, joggers, and gourmands who conquered New York. And a lot of the book focuses on the 1980s and how the financial policy of that time formed the foundation of our current K-shape economy. So it was like, Yuppies back then were sort of like the main demographic with ample discretionary income. So they became like a marketing and cultural phenomenon, kind of spawning a lot of Yuppie aspirants who were kind of on the wrong side of that K-shape economy. And it kind of feels like, at least entertainment-wise, that's sort of the stories that we were fascinated with before. People who were on the, like the upper side of that K-shape economy. But now it feels like the wealth disparity has grown so much that maybe perhaps way more of us are on that downward-shaped part of the K-shape economy than in the 1980s, even. And it seems like a lot of the characters that you're discussing are people who are like, oh, this does not feel good. Aspiring to want what the super wealthy have was like fun, for a minute. And it's kind of not anymore. But yeah, there's a lot of emotions around that. The thing is just kept coming back to when I was rewatching these shows is that they're so good about looking at the ways that money or like a scarcity of money ends up really seeping into and poisoning your relationships. I mean, I don't think I'm the only person in the world who grew up watching their parents fight about money. And that is just such a core part of my childhood and what I remember about growing up. And I think watching these shows, watching these marriages fall apart because of arguments about money, watching people feel like they can't trust one another because of how they deal with money or how they don't deal with money. Like, there's something really fundamentally heartbreaking about that, but also something so utterly relatable. I think like a really good example is that like in DTF, there is a married couple and the husband becomes friends with this weatherman and then the husband's wife also begins in a fair with the same weatherman. And even this like extra marital affair becomes really marinated in the financial troubles of like the married couple. And they get together and of course there's discussions about masculinity and sex and like how like into make and you really get with other person blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, they're just sitting around talking about like, oh, you know, like my husband's inability to deal with the money. Like this woman is having conversations with her affair partner about like her husband's money, spending habits. And like, it's just impossible to get away from. And I, I don't know, it feels weird to say like I love that, but like I love that. Like it felt so real and it felt so true. - Where is the catharsis for Brooke TV? What is it doing for us emotionally? - I mean, this is what I wonder about all the time or this was sort of like the big question that I had while writing this piece because if I watch a show like DTF and I'm sitting there just sort of like wondering, like is this escapist enough for people or is this just going to make them think about like their own money troubles? But I think that there's also a lot of humor that can be mined from all of this. Secondly is enough beef. There is a working class couple who are sort of like, working at the fringes of the country club and they're trying to blackmail their manager into like a better salary or whatever. But at the same time, the show captures them as they are discovering their political consciousness seemingly for the first time. and. *high five* They found this scene sort of astounding because it's both so funny and so sad that all of the solutions that they come up with are so dry and impotent in like enacting any sort of like real change societally or on an individual level. And they're kind of just like, "Should we vote like is that the solution?" And I think it's something like that really captures how far away any sort of change really feels like and also at the same time you can sort of like find humor in it. And I guess I don't know if that really sounds that cathartic for people but I kind of weirdly loves the fact that we even get any sort of acknowledgement from a mainstream television show that politics just feels so incapable of addressing real people's concerns. So much so that what they end up resorting to in order to get ahead in life and have some health insurance for the first time in their life is like blackmail. Yeah, yeah, like it felt that dramatic, yeah. And like faking like professional licenses and things like that. And the more soap operatic their antics get, the more sort of like weirdly logical it all feels because how else are any of these people supposed to get ahead in life? Hmm. Hmm. Well, Ingo, I'll tell you what. I know like we're about to get a new slate of TV shows this season. It is a new TV year coming up. I'm hoping that we see more stories that kind of get into this muckiness. It feels like the right thing right now. And I'm really glad that you that you took notice of this and wrote about it. Thank you. I also really hope that we get more shows in this vein. I think we kind of needed as a society, which sounds a little like strange to say that we need any television show. And I do feel like this is where so many people are right now. This sort of like weird, liminal space where they probably have like gone through all of the hoops to land at a place where they should feel more stable and secure in life and are just really not feeling that because those places of landing have been sort of destroyed to thematically, wow, anyway, I'm going to get all my soap box down. I am feeling what you're saying, I'm vibing with what you just said right now. I have been enjoying watching on TV too. I'm really glad I got to talk about this with you. Ingo, thank you so much. I love being depressed. That was television critic at The New Yorker Ingo Kang. You can read her article, Welcome to the Age of Broke TV at The New Yorker Right Now. This episode of It's Been a Minute was produced by Alexis Williams. This episode was edited by Nina Patuck. Our supervising producer is Sheriff Vincent. Our executive producer is Barton Gurdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini. All right, that's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce. Talk soon.