Best Actress Completely Unsuited for the Part

Shows you how much influence I've got.

Sarah Paulson has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Paulson, it's generally agreed by critics and fans alike, is the second most annoying thing about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the first most annoying thing being the show's creator Aaron Sorkin's "comedy as a serious business, like periodonture," approach to writing a TV show about writing a TV show, and in a just, or at least tasteful, world she'd have been written out of the script by now and not up for any awards.

Yes, I know the awards Hollywood incessantly gives itself are fairly meaningless as artistic judgments, and the Golden Globes are the biggest joke of the bunch (although at least the people behind the Golden Globes seem to know they're a joke), and yes, I'm about to write yet again about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and I have heard from many of my readers that I've already written way too much about that show.  To those readers I say, Patience.  This post isn't just about Studio 60.  It's also about Cheers, M*A*S*H, and The Unit, and it includes discussions of nudity and sex.

Paulson plays Harriet Hayes, the inexplicably popular fan-favorite and class sweetheart of the "cast" of the fictional sketch comedy show that's at the center of Studio 60.  The character, a conservative, evangelical Christian with a bad habit of letting everybody know it at inopportune times, but who substitutes lecturing and scolding for praying in public, is said to have been based on Kristin Chenoweth.

Chenoweth, now wowing them on Broadway in The Apple Tree, is bubbly, brassy, sexy, and funny.  Harriet Hayes is none of those things and Paulson captures that perfectly.

As I've said before, Harriet's blandness is not all Paulson's fault.  Sorkin hasn't given her much to work with.  All her best qualities are assumed by the scripts; as if we have no real interest in seeing Harriet's talents as an actress and comedienne on display, we never get to see her shine, we're just told that she does.  And her worst qualities, her sanctimony, her self-righteousness, her instinctive desire to be a wet-blanket, aren't portrayed as bad qualities.  They are seen as intrinsic to her being a conservative Christian, and since Sorkin is using Harriet as a kind of noble savage---"Some of my best friends are Indians and Evangelicals, now let's get on with exterminating the brutes"---vices that Christ himself preached against repeatedly are allowed to pass as virtues, proof of her sincerity and therefore shielded from irony, satire, and contempt.

I imagine Paulson could have a whole lot of fun with the part if she was allowed to play Harriet as annoying scold, whose sanctimony was really a hysterical expression of repressed sexuality---the church lady type who is usually found at the end of the play with her heels up, her crinoline around her waist, and a red-faced church deacon on top of her, huffing and puffing away, on the verge of a heart attack as he tries to satisfy her suddenly unleashed libido.

Of course, a leading lady who's an annoying hypocrite would violate the Prime Directive of Network Series Television:  Main characters are not allowed to be unlikeable, and how Boston Legal gets away with breaking this one week in and week out is beyond me, except that it suggests that the rule is all in the minds of the Network suits and timid writers and producers and actors and not all that important to viewers.

But Paulson could still approach the part as if Harriet wasn't the saint she, that is, Harriet herself, and Aaron Sorkin think she is, and even come close to making her that sexy church lady, by playing her as one of two types---the Good Girl with a Naughty Streak or the One Time Bad Girl Determined to Repent.

I've written about the Good Girl With a Naughty Streak before, when I wrote about Lilith on Cheers being the Schoolmarm type.

There's something of the Schoolmarm about Harriet, but a true Schoolmarm type has to be in a relative position of authority, at least in regards to the other characters around her.  Schoolmarms have a good reason for holding themselves sexually aloof and not becoming one of the gang and not joining in the fun.  Lilith has a professional reputation to uphold, plus she is a wife and a mother.  Diane Chambers, who acted the part of the schoolmarm, has no good reason to be so superior and standoffish except her own snobbery, which is why she was so annoying and why her character's ultimate exile from the bar made dramatic sense.

Actually, in many ways, Diane was the Sexy Church Lady type, but her "church" was the church of her own intellectual pretensions.  Another Sexy Church Lady was Margaret Houlihan on M*A*S*H.  And currently one of the wives on The Unit is presenting an interesting, and dressed-down, variation on the type.

Thanks to J. at the Armchair Generalist for calling my attention to this show.

Tiffy Gerhardt is a good and loving mother, a dedicated and even heroic high school teacher, and in most things that count a loyal wife---she's devoted to her husband's "church," the Delta Force Unit and the Army, and she sings in the choir, so to speak, energetically and enthusiastically taking part in the base wives's social activities and self-support work.  And she's cheating on her husband regularly with his commanding officer.

The Unit's backstory gives her an excuse.  Her husband, Mack, is a good solider but a bad husband, negligent, withdrawn, emotionally stunted, unable to express any feelings around her except anger---he's lost control at least once and beat her and the scripts so far don't give us any reason to think this was out of character and likely to be a one-time mistake.  Tiffy is lonely, afraid, deserving of much better from life but bound to her husband by love and a sense of duty.

On top of everything else, she seems to love the commanding officer, tragically, because part of the reason she won't leave her husband for him is that she knows it would wreck both men's careers if the affair ever became public.

Her situation is such that we ought to forgive her and root for her and be glad she has at least something of her own in her life and we do and we are, but, and this is something I admire about The Unit, it's more complicated than that.

As she's written and as she's played by Abby Brammell, Tiffy is sexually eager, even demanding, and there's a definite implication that while she loves the colonel, love isn't everything or even the main thing.  She likes, wants, and needs sex, not just because she's young, horny, and lonely, but because she's good at it.

She is vain, proud of her body and proud of what she can do with it in bed.  She's also reckless and she enjoys the threat cheating brings to her life.  In fact, in many ways she is very like her husband.  Sex is her talent, the way combat is his.  They both enjoy expressing their competence and love the thrill and the danger that goes with it.

She is without guilt too.  When the colonel, harried by his conscience and concerned about the way his own bad behavior is jeopardizing the Unit's cohesiveness and therefore its security, tries to break it off with her, Tiffy demands and gets a last meeting in their usual motel room.  There, she listens to him try to explain himself, scoffs, sneers, dismisses his guilt and his concerns, pushes him down onto the bed, strips off her shirt, and leans her perfect belly into his face, absolutely confident of her power over him, but also angry and insulted that he would even think about giving up the possibility of seeing her naked.

So, like the Sexy Church Lady, Tiffy is vain and sexually adventurous in private and a goody-two-shoes in public.  It isn't just the case that she needs to protect herself with a public reputation for being a good girl.  It's also that she is as vain of being a good girl as she is vain of being a sexual dynamo.  Which makes her a hypocrite by choice not just by necessity.

As I said, I'd find it more interesting if Harriet Hayes was a variation on the Sexy Church Lady type---and for those of you who think I'm just wishing for more scenes of Harriet in her underwear, there are plenty of ways for Sexy Church Ladies to backslide without their always landing on their backs---but that's not in the cards.

It's also a little late to start presenting Harriet as the Bad Girl Determined to Repent.  Harriet's past could be full of many episodes of backsliding, but it's really not necessary to the type that she actually be a Bad Girl, only that she think of herself as one.  Christianity does a good job of convincing lots of good people that they are in fact bad just for being themselves, so this wouldn't be at all a stretch.  It's just that Aaron Sorkin is determined to make Harriet a sunny, romantic heroine type, and not a neurotic mess of a realistic protagonist.

So it would seem that Paulson's best and only option is to play Harriet as the Good Girl With a Naughty Streak, which, based on the way she lightened up in the last two episodes, seems to be where she's headed.  Trouble is that her idea of naughty appears to be loving a Jewish Hollyweird atheist comedy writer.  This is "trouble" in the usefully dramatic sense.  It means that her love for Matt Albie is a serious problem for her in that it means she has to reject or betray her sincerely held beliefs in order to be with him.  This makes her very much like Diane Chambers, who could never completely give in to her love for Sam because in her mind it meant she was rejecting her "church" of Art and Culture.

For each woman, then, having the man she loves requires her to compromise herself, no big deal as far as the audience is concerned, because neither Harriet nor Diane is devoted to an attractive belief, in fact, they are both devoted more to their own self-image as a Good Girl than to actually being a good girl.  But giving up a cherished and self-flattering opinion is very difficult for most people.

Shelley Long's leaving Cheers saved the writers from having to decide whether or not Diane was capable of changing and what to do with her if she was. 

Things will be more interesting on Studio 60 if it turns out that Harriet can't change or has a lot of trouble changing.  (There is no reason for Matt to change for her, because he doesn't need to in order to love her or let her be herself, and because he's right.)  But it would be even more interesting if it turns out that not only can't she change, she doesn't want to change, because to change would take away what she likes about being in love with Matt---that in loving him she is being naughty.

This is what makes Good Girls With Naughty Streaks dangerous in real life, if you happen to be the object or occasion of their naughtiness.

For one thing, Good Girls With Naughty Streaks are in fact good girls.  Being good means being able to resist or give up being naughty, which means that once they decide they don't want to be naughty any more, you're out the door.

But it also often means that what they like about you is that you are what allows them to be naughty and so they will resist any attempts on your part to make your relationship with them less naughty.  The Sexy Church Lady can be an extreme variation of the Good Girl With A Naughty Streak and Tiffy on The Unit is a good example.  When the colonel tries to break off their affair, he's attempting to return their relationship to more proper terms.  Not at all naughty.  And Tiffy won't put up with that.

Good Girls With Naughty Streaks can be extremely manipulative then.  They will have things their own way.  If you mess with them by trying to be something other than they need you to be, they will put you back in your place in a violent hurry, even if it means breaking it off with you in a fit of self-righteous indignation.  "How dare you think I am that type of girl, you cad!"

This was the way Diane kept Sam in line.  Whenever she threatened to or did break it off with him, she always made sure he understood that it was because he was beneath her.  She played on Sam's insecurity and vanity and that way made sure he danced to her tune.

This was also an element in the perpetual threat Margaret used against Frank on M*A*S*H.  She always made it clear that he was the cad and the seducer who had taken advantage of her in her loneliness, she was his innocent victim, guilty of nothing more than loving not wisely but too well, and she made it even plainer that if he ever did her wrong this is exactly how the world, and his wife, would see things.  She'd make sure of that.

The Good Girl With a Naughty Streak is always one step away from becoming a villainess or at least the antagonist to her former lover's or the rival for her former lover's protagonist.

I wouldn't mind seeing Harriet Hayes being taken by Aaron Sorkin and Sarah Paulson in this direction, especially since Matt and Harriet just aren't clicking as a couple.

But as things stand, and as Paulson is currently playing her, Harriet is one of literature and life's most annoying types.

The Prude Who Wants to be Thought of as Fun.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Did I miss something??? I thought it was just January 1st, not April 1st.

I guess the bear joke won them over!

[Rasselas]

I sort of like The Unit when people are being shot or blown up, but not when the wives are lecturing people about things that David Mamet read once on the Internet about the use of handguns for self-defense and the virtues of "the force of arms." Jack Bauer at least acknowledges that many of his actions are both beyond reproach and ultra vires, higher purposes aside.

[Dave G.]

"All her best qualities are assumed by the scripts; as if we have no real interest in seeing Harriet's talents as an actress and comedienne on display, we never get to see her shine, we're just told that she does."

Good line, and one that stands in stark contrast to Jane Krakowski's character on 30 Rock, who you believe would be funny as the leading lady on a weekly variety show simply because she just is that funny on her own. We get a nice picture of the loopiness, pride, determination and misguided sense of her own mystique that you can believe this works on television.

I don't know if you watch that show, Lance, but to me it stands as an obvious counterpoint - a funny show with funny people, who you can believe could put together funny sketches.

[Suffering Bruin]

I was going to write what Dave G. wrote above, though not nearly as well. Lance, that's the best description of what's wrong with Studio 60 that I've ever read. It has the potential to get better and I hope it does.

[Dave MB]

I seem to see more of what Matt (and hence Sorkin) see as attractive in Harriet. When Matt and Harriet have bonded best is when they've been working together on the show's problems. I've been able to see why the rest of the cast and crew love her, though it's certainly possible that I've been projecting. My favorite bit was when the minor-cast impresssions guy had to prepare to fill in on the news when Simon was in Nevada and was having stagefright problems -- Harriet said "look at me" and made a very strange face to crack him up. It broke the tension and also told him "you can do this because I believe in you".

We're told that Matt made his professional breakthrough once he could write for Harriet, and he's totally supportive of her career even when personal jealousy might get in the way. It might be more interesting if they needed each other but didn't like each other, but we don't seem to be going that way.

I agree with you more when it comes to where they're going with the romantic subplot. Originally it seemed that Matt broke up with her ostensibly over the 700 club thing, but I agree that in the long run he doesn't need her to change in order to be in love with her. Whereas she might, _if_ her values were better defined in opposition to Matt's values. So far every time it's mattered they've wound up more or less agreeing. I'm reminded that we still haven't seen very much of Harriet, and maybe we'll see more that will illuminate things further. Sorkin probably can't take the sexual directions you propose, interesting though they would be, but maybe he can define her better in some other way.

I'm enjoying the show to the extent that it's the only series I'm watching, and I've enjoyed the commentary.

[Jim Tourtelott]

Jane Krakowski? Jane Krakowski, the funniest and liveliest woman to emerge on television in the last decade is back, and no one has had the decency to inform me of this fact? Heads will roll over this, I assure you.

[Dusty]

Re Dave MB's last post, the role Harriet seems to have played in Matt's professional breakthrough was that of a muse rather than a collaborator. He wrote better because he wanted to impress her as opposed to, say, finding someone who understood how to perform his material or someone who could work with him to make his material stronger or someone who was so freaking good she pushed him farther than he thought he could go. Matt was fond of Harriet and that motivated him to write better, which is a tribute to her personal charms and not her professional skill. The example noted is also an example of her personal warmth rather than her abilities as a comedienne, which have not been on display for the home viewer.

[cgeye]

I watch THE UNIT under the fiction that all the non-fascist, character-rich bits are written by Shawn Ryan's folks, and that he leaves all the macho crap to Mamet's minions, which means I can turn the channel.

With Regina Taylor, unfortunately, she's in the Mamet section of stolid, patriotic, ruthless manipulators, which I'd expect nothing less from that Spartan, forever-lying couple.

And we thought David Palmer's wife was a trip....

[alphie]

One Sorkin Unit = 6 more episodes?

Give it up, Lance...

[Lance]

Suffering Bruin: Lance, that's the best description of what's wrong with Studio 60 that I've ever read.

SB, Thanks, but I'm just distilling the judgment of many of the folks who've stopped by for the Studio 60 Live-blogging. In fact, I may even have been quoting somebody. Things sometimes get a little snide, but the observations and critiques are usually dead-on. Live-blogging resumes, despite protests(alphie), in a couple of weeks.

Dave G, Yep, I've been watching 30 Rock. Love it. When I watch it, I don't even think of Studio 60. When I watch Studio 60 I think, I wish Aaron Sorkin would watch 30 Rock.

Jane Krakowski's a hoot, and just as you say, but I've been bowled away by Tina Fey herself.

Dave MB, Paulson was definitely livening up and lightening up in the last few episodes. Like I said, her biggest problem with the character is Sorkin's conception of Harriet. Often happens, though, that writers of TV shows recognize when the part and the star are at creative odds and start writing for the actor rather than for the character and that's when things take off. Maybe that will happen for Paulson/Harriet.

cgeye, the politics of the Unit doesn't bear thinking about, and I wonder how many more episodes I can watch before I can't ignore them anymore. I'm only 2/3rds of the way through season one. The wives really are like the women at a real church. They see it as their job to enforce conformity, obedience, and orthodoxy. It's still a question, whose side the writers are on, Molly's or Kim Brown's.

[J.]

Re: the Unit, I agree with your bottom para in the cmts, Lance. I really wince when they roll the wives' dramas (except for Tiffy), praying that they get back to the shooting action. I can ignore the politics easily enough, I enjoy the men's crisp dialogue and the good tactics they employ in bringing hell down on the bad-guys.

30 Rock rocks. Tina Fey is good, but Adam Baldwin makes it amazing.

[merciless]

I have to stick up for Harriet. Well, I have to stick up for her just a little bit, since I also find her annoying, unbelievably naive, and oddly passive in a profession where I'd expect that passivity would get you nowhere.

But her doing Holly Hunter doing Helena in Midsummer's was very, very funny. It was in that moment I thought, crap, Sarah Paulson has some game! Why don't we ever get to see it?

[velvet goldmine]

Thank God it's OK that TV is such a subjective medium. For me, Jane Krackheadowski nearly ruins 30 Rock, and I think it's a horrible shame that Rachel Dretch was shoved aside to make way for JK's more glamorous (I...guess?) persona.

On the other hand, I'm a big Harriet fan. Offstage, as it were, her character is all above warmth, about luminosity. As a player on Studio 60, her Nancy Grace and Holly Hunter (as Merciless pointed out) and even her anchor stuff, truly crack me up.

One of the many things I like about the show (the Sorkin show) is that the Big Three Studio 60 players aren't in-your-face "on" all the time. They're pretty mellow, and pretty professional. I.e., More Jane Curtin than John Belushi, or, God forbid, Chris Farley.

It just doesn't bother me that Harriet is more subtle and nuanced than, say, the NBS president, who delivers her lines like she's at a kegger. But then again, I have a HUGE Amanda Peet problem.

[cgeye]

"The wives really are like the women at a real church. They see it as their job to enforce conformity, obedience, and orthodoxy. It's still a question, whose side the writers are on, Molly's or Kim Brown's."

Yep, that's why I was rooting for the terrorists when --- well, you'll see what I mean shortly. Suffice it to say that there's a reason we really don't see the kids of these families, because the medical professionals in the audience would be ticking off the sociopathic traits left unchecked by parents who have been trained not to tell the truth until it killed them.

It's like feminism could never take real hold past the mobile cultural class of America, because the enclaves with guns would always have these wives, seeming empowered only because their menfolk gave allowed them some tools to cope, during the long deployments, these enforcers of traditions they barely protest, because their compliance literally is life and death for their families.

Damn (referring to this week's ep), does every child custody battle get the privilege of ending through blackmail and a threat of violent retaliation by a dead soldier's buddies? Is this why militias and homeschooling are beloved by the heartland -- no ambiguities, no contamination, no possible revealing of secrets?

And, as for Miss Paulson, I prefer to remember her as Miss Isringhausen, hope she restores herself regularly by the bosom of her beloved, Miss Cherry Jones (praise be to Allah for her fierceness), and know that if she can get kudos for playing a straight, Christian orthodox comedienne who has a jones (ahem) for Matthew Perry, then, yes, she *is* one hell of an actress....

[cgeye]

On further examination (and an instructive review of her stellar performance in DOWN WITH LOVE), I have to give it up; Ms. Paulson can do great imitative comedy. She impeccably channeled Paula Prentiss at her kooky peak, from MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT and THE HONEYMOON MACHINE, to the point that I couldn't place the name of the actress that was doing that heck of a job.

So, even though I wish there was no excuse for the suckage, it's all Sorkin's fault. I can sleep easier that at last I know he simply moved his self-destructive tendencies from the crackpipe to the laptop....