"We may not have much," Frank declares, unshaven and decked out in a salt-of-the-Earth jean jacket, "but we know how to party!"
This
depiction of class separates Shameless from Showtime's other fare,
which typically displays families with transparently bourgeois (or at
the very least comfortable) roots. Nancy Botwin of Weeds may sell a lot
of pot, but she comes from the suburbs and knows her lattes. Theatrical
Dexter occupies a swank bachelor pad and pulls in a seemingly healthy
salary. Shameless, in contrast, originated in notoriously
class-preoccupied Great Britain, where it is about to enter its 8th
season, and class remains a central part of the American import.
But
to portray poverty as so comic and so kitschy runs the risk of
condescension, especially when you consider the idiosyncratic style of
the show and the affluence of Showtime's demographics. The colorful
dramatization calls to mind The Wire's David Simon mockery of newspaper
editors, when the journalists babbled on about the need to render the
wonderful "Dickensian aspect" of crumbling, broken Baltimore. The
targeted demographic of Shameless does not likely resemble the show's
characters. Showtime privileges gloss over earnestness, and a glossy
portrayal of poverty, full of irony, introduces a new depiction of
poverty.
Most of the characters, of course, have to
be clever and white because the alternative would make the disconnect
too transparent, the tone too unsure. Shameless has its serious moments
but doesn't want to get too serious. This poor Chicago is hardly the
one featured in Alex Kotlowitz's non-fiction book There Are No Children Here. A 2010 report (PDF)
indicated that Chicago's child poverty exceeded 30 percent, but the
Gallagher kids seem cheerful enough. When cops dump a drunken Frank
onto the family carpet, the moment is more clownish than moving. It's
practically minstrel.
In the past, American TV played
poverty straight, and while a blue-collar spirit may have characterized
many shows, extreme poverty was never the running joke. The downtrodden
inspired earnest lessons of the week. They highlighted broken homes and
addiction. Shows frequently featured a rough-and-tumble kid from the
streets, lost and then found (The OC's Ryan Atwood, Boy Meets World's
Shawn Hunter, Roswell's Michael Guerin, Leonardo DiCaprio on Growing
Pains).
It's also important to distinguish what's
been more a history of broader blue-collar comedies from the completely
impoverished environment Shameless is stylistically diving into.
Several U.S. shows emphasized a working-class spirit while staying away
from truly poor characters. And while Shameless may pride itself (as
seen in its every trailer) on oh-so-daring scenes like a teen
Gallagher's study-session blowjob, many of these older, broader shows
took a bolder look at working-class ideology. The comedy of Archie
Bunker (All in the Family) was much nastier than what we've seen out of
Shameless. Roseanne offered similar lessons as a blue-collar family
grappled with issues, but the comedy was less clever and more raw than
Shameless seems to be. These working-class comedies were also less
patently absurd—they avoided making cheapness, theft, and addiction
easy tropes, which risk the air of condescension that a network as
sharp as Showtime assumes with this debut.