Among the
legacies of The Sopranos is a new artistic fantasy: producing the
Great American Television Drama has supplanted writing the Great American
Novel. Eager to replicate the achievement of David Chases masterpiece
without presuming to compete with it, producers are casting around for
narratives that are quintessentially American but dont star the Mafia.
Its got to be possible.
Certainly David Milch (Deadwood, on HBO), David Simon (The
Wire, also HBO) and Aaron Sorkin (Studio 60
on the Sunset Strip, on NBC this fall) have ventured plausible hypotheses.
Maybe televisions
But, really, who
will be our echt Americans, if not Mr. Chases
Italian-Americans?
Enter,
clamorously, the Irish. Television is suddenly filled with them. There are
actors, of course Frances Conroy,
Lauren Graham, Alec Balwin,Denis
Leary, Louis C. K. and Donal Logue, to name some of
the most visible but also
Irish-American characters and Irish-American dramas and Irish-American
neighborhoods. In the two most captivating dramas of the summer, Denis
Learys Rescue Me on FX and Blake Masterss
Brotherhood on Showtime, Irishness, for
better or worse, is the killer app of narratives: a concept that alone sets
actions in motion. Rescue Me, after all,
resounds with a catchall explanation from Tommy Gavin (Mr. Leary) for every
kind of rambunctious behavior: Were Irish.
Not so long ago,
on the reality programs that used to pervade prime time, American seemed to
mean all-American. Blond, that is, low-key, good-natured and lacking a a strong ethnic identity.
But in a great
American television series a
scripted show characters cannot be
low-key or good-natured. They have to have histories so they can bear grudges.
And they absolutely cannot be averse to drama, as reality-show personalities
often claim to be. Sex, death and money must be tightly intertwined in any hourlong series of the Sopranos era; punches must
be thrown; opera must ensue. Unsentimental reality contestants dont have the heart for our grand national themes, on television
or in films. No reality girl could have played Laura Linney's
part in
For producers
trying to keep a show relevant and suspenseful, what do Irish characters have
going for them? Lets see. Well, you can always give them alcohol problems:
the bipolar excitement of drunkenness and hangovers. And theres the taut
suspense of sobriety, which as Mr.
Learys Tommy shows is always
about to snap.
Those Irish can
also brawl, as Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale) does to
impress Tommys sister (Tatum ONeal) on Rescue Me and
Michael Caffee (Jason Isaacs)
does to intimidate almost everyone on Brotherhood. Being Roman
Catholic, they can also repent and turn abstemious; they can fall into romantic
dramas that contrast virgins with whores; they can be gay or homophobic, with
serious consequences; they can go to Mass and macabre funeral wakes. Being
strivers, they can run for office or become police officers and firefighters;
they can try to pass for Protestants; they can fall and fall and fall and try
to do better.
Thats plenty
of action, which means plenty of chances to annoy Ray Flynn, the former mayor
of
He makes a fair
point, but for these shows, what does it matter? So we dont get old
Coppola/Scorsese scenes of tough guys with fagioli
and razor-thin garlic. And if the lives of Mr. Learys and Mr.
Masterss Irish characters are less sensuous and sybaritic than those of
Mr. Chases Italian-Americans picture beer for wine, ballgames for
strip clubs, and bars for restaurants they can at least be more cerebral. Theyre loquacious, even poetic. Which
is not to say these shows as a whole are smarter than The Sopranos,
just that the characters tend to make arguments, debate points and discuss
current events. No one is reticent.
Which brings us
to the other Irish-Americans on television: Sean Hannity,
Chris Matthews, Bill OReilly. As loath as Mr.
Leary and Mr. Masters might be to admit it, these mouthy cable commentators
paved the way for the new style of Irish-American drama. They brandish their
tempers, their volubility, their high color and their decidedly
post-post-Kennedy politics. Nostalgia for the ward politics and union loyalties
that inform Rescue Me and propel Brotherhood has also
turned up on the talk shows, especially when the subject is immigration.
American viewers
have simply built up a tolerance for the beguiling blarney of television Irishness. And, withPaul Haggis
starting the uber-Irish Black Donnellys on NBC in the fall, no one will be going on
the wagon anytime soon.