HOW DO YOU NOT “GET” 30 ROCK?!

Just in case you didn’t already know, the lovely Clem Bastow now writes a daily piece about television over at The Vine. It’s very good and educational (the America’s Next Top Model article was a revelation, particularly the Tyra Banks gifs) and you should read it often. She’s just banged out a piece about not “getting” 30 Rock – one of my favourite shows in the whole wide world – and I wanted to bring it to your attention to see if any other folks out there are in Clem’s position.

30 Rock. WHAT THE HELL YOU GUYS. I’ve tried, and I’ve tried again, and then I tried some more.

It’s just. Not. Funny.

Or, at least, not in my mind. And I do have rather odd and exacting tastes in comedy; to paraphrase every bogan’s favourite art quote, I don’t know much about comedy, but I know what I like.

The fault falls, I think, with Tina Fey, who I find too self-conscious to really enter the realm of the side-splittingly hilarious. I value a slightly unhinged quality in my female comedians, the ability to go to ugly and uncomfortable places (think Amy Sedaris or vintage Julia Louis Dreyfuss). Tina Fey seems so stuck on having become “the pretty one” after her dumpy improv days that Liz Lemon is forever jammed in first (comedy) gear.

Tina Fey stuck on being the pretty one? Are we watching the same show? She seems to be constantly making fun of her physical appearance! The phone sex ads! The flashbacks to the awkward years!

This is very much not a popular opinion to have; there are a LOT of women of roughly my age who think 30 Rock is the greatest thing to have ever happened to comedy, ever, in the history of the whole entire universe. I know because I have teetered close to being cut from Christmas card lists for expressing something even vaguely differing from that opinion.

Hell, just look at what some anonymous 30 Rock fan said to someone (not me, mind) who dared to write “30 Rock isn’t funny” on a Videogum piece on the show: “If you can’t find 30 Rock funny I hate to see what you actually do find funny. Probably baby kittens being run over by your haterade.”

There is some hope for kitten-killing hateraders like me; Jonah Weiner made some very astute points over at Slate when discussing one of the things that irks me the most about 30 Rock, the show’s distinct conservative streak:

“How do these story lines fit into a show masterminded by a successful, self-described feminist like Fey? Flawed people are funny, sure, but why does Liz Lemon have the traditionally gendered flaws she does? Elaine Benes and Murphy Brown, for example, were strong, feminist-friendly characters and funny, to boot. On Seinfeld, Elaine was a frumpy-sexy career woman who slept around without censure, inspired suitors to get vasectomies, and made the birth control “sponge” famous. Murphy Brown is a funhouse-mirror image of Liz. She works in TV, wants to be a single mother, rolls her eyes at the cleavage-flashing coquetry of her bimbo co-worker, Corky, and embarks on a love-hate relationship with a right-winger, Jerry Gold. But she’s also confident, ambitious, and doesn’t run to her boss for guidance so much as bully him constantly.”

You know what? I like the fact that Liz goes to her boss for guidance. More importantly, I like that he goes to her for guidance too. Surely the opposite of helplessness is not being too proud to ask for help from others? And maybe it’s just me, but whenever Liz has turned to Jack Donaghy for advice, I’ve not once – ever – thought to myself “Oh look, that woman is seeking help from a man“. It didn’t even occur to me to view the situation that way at all. They are two friends looking out for each other, and the fact that Liz is friends with a man and sometimes has to rely on that friend when things get tough does not make her an anti-feminist character, it makes her a functional human being.

But hey, I love the show so of course I am going to defend it to the death. Do you get/not get 30 Rock? Why? I am genuinely curious.

And while I may disagree with dear Clem about 30 Rock, I could not agree more with her somewhat controversial opinion of Arrested Development.

Arrested Development is another that went straight through me. There’s deadpan, and then there’s dead. I didn’t laugh once. Seriously. Admittedly I didn’t soldier on for particularly long with Arrested Development, but just couldn’t really be stuffed either way.

I did see quite a bit of Arrested Development (everyone kept jamming it down my throat and insisted I would love it) and there were times it was… alright. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that every ten seconds, that smug Ron Howard voiceover was going to pipe up “Look at us! We’re Americans and we’re doing SATIRE! AREN’T WE CLEVER! DID YOU SEE THAT BIT? DID YOU? SQUEEEEEEEEEE! WE’RE MADE OF GENIUS!”

Sorry, Arrested Development fans.

MORE: The TV shows you never got

PS: Clem’s Radiothon show on RRR is on from 4pm this afternoon! Subscribe by calling 9388 1927, or go to the website rrr.org.au.