October 10, 2008
Patsy is My Alter Ego
Better Living Through Comedy
I don't know what it is lately, but I've been more reluctant than usual to act like an adult, at least with any modicum of grace. Because of this--and likely because of my job, the incessant election coverage, and the global financial nightmare we've created--I've been indulging in escapist entertainment like it's going out of style.
Just this weekend I found myself avidly re-watching Better Off Dead, my favorite eighties movie, for about the hundredth time. Ah, the innocence of the romance between John Cusack and that fake French woman; the simplicity of the jokes ("Gee, I'm real sorry your mom blew up, Ricky"); and the indisputably excellent eighties soundtrack. To this day, whenever I need to pretend I'm in an eighties get-to-it montage, Howard Jones is my artist of choice.
Better Off Dead was one of the first comedies that sucked me unconditionally into its demented monde renversé and more teen movies followed. As I grew older, I moved on to darker diversions from reality. For a time I fell madly in love with the punk/anarchist series The Young Ones (I too was young, I didn't know any better) but after that brief fling, I found my true love: Absolutely Fabulous. It was in that show, and as an adult, that I discovered the real power of escape.
Much of comedy's potential for escapism comes from world it constructs, from (for example) believing for just a moment that there is such a thing as a happy ending. Some theorists also suggest that comedy is the equivalent of Freudian wish-fulfillment, and that its entire point is freeing its characters (and thus, its viewers) from social constraints. I think this is true, but with one caveat: the viewer is usually going to escape through a particular character, and not just the comic world at large. So I've always thought that comic characters allow a more individual, or eccentric, form of escapism.
I was thinking about this fact recently as a friend and I were discussing The Vicar of Dibley, another British television series. This one stars the very funny Dawn French as (you guessed it) the vicar of a small village. I had always liked the show, but my friend surprised me by saying how much she admired the character of the vicar. "She says what she really thinks," said my friend, "and I wish I could be like that."
I was surprised only because I didn't think of the good vicar as being particularly in-your-face. My friend, on the other hand, has self-proclaimed problems with being assertive. It made perfect sense that she should admire a character who was more honest than she could be.
Not having much of a problem with assertiveness, my comic heroines are more extreme. Which brings me back to AbFab, and its avoidance of a particularly grown-up type of reality. AbFab centers on the dysfunctional family dynamic between magazine editor and single mom Edina, her daughter Saffron, and Edina's best friend since high school, Patsy. Edina's weak-willed, self-indulgent character is a terrible parent, and even as a friend she's a doormat. Saffron is the believably high-achieving, conciliatory result of such negligent parenting, while Patsy is always encouraging Edina to indulge in self-destructive behavior.
Predictably, Patsy and Saffron hate each other, and their relationship is probably my favorite part of the show. Saffron despises the pernicious influence that Patsy has on her mother, and jealous Patsy wishes Saffron had never been born. Their animus often breaks out into ugly (but hilarious) fights. As someone who's dealing with friends having kids, I'm ashamed to admit I take some sick pleasure in watching Pasty roar unrepentantly at Saffron.