Refreshing Portrayals of Human Beings in Film and Television

The idea for this blog post came to me in the middle of Nicole Holofcener’s latest film Enough Said as I watched Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, both over 50, playing divorced characters with teenage children leaving for college; fall in love with each other.

We’ve all seen love stories on the big screen, The Notebook, Titanic and Romeo and Juliet are a few examples that come to mind, so the basic premise of Enough Said is nothing new. But what I found so refreshing was witnessing two mature adults at similar points in their lives have a meaningful and beautiful relationship with each other. And on top of this, it was nice to see a male lead like the late great Gandolfini, a man who did not have the appearance of the typical Hollywood ‘leading man’. Nevertheless, his character in Enough Said highlights the basic fact that it is not a persons looks, weight or age that impacts their ability to engage in a meaningful romantic relationship with another person, rather it is (get ready for a cliché) who they are on the inside.

Of course Enough Said didn’t teach me this important message, but it was great to see it on the big screen presented in a non-preachy, realistic way. Essentially the film, like any other love story, tells the story of two people who fall in love with each other, but the writing, casting and performances made it original, exciting and refreshing to watch.

 

 Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini in Enough Said

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I also recently finished season 1 of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, which I would say is a must watch for anyone who is a fan of good television and anyone who is human. Orange is the New Black (OITNB) is full of refreshing portrayals of characters, primarily women, and I believe it’s overwhelming success can be partly attributed to this fact. Here are a few examples:

• It has one of the most racially diverse casts on television today, and even though there has been discussion about how certain racial elements are portrayed, the show has to be given credit for it’s inclusion of a vast array of African American, Hispanic, Latina, Asian and Caucasian characters.

• Women absolutely dominate the show, not just in quantity but in character structure and storylines as well. The female inmates especially are different ages, from different circumstances, and have different physical appearances that are very unique in a media world that places great emphasis on “conventional” beauty (whatever that is) and having a certain body type.

• It displays a range of different sexualities without binary labels and I believe The Huffington Post’s Amanda Duberman highlights this perfectly,

The series' most heavy-handed moments relate to sexuality. "You don't just turn gay," Piper insists to her friend and fiance, "you fall somewhere on a spectrum, like a Kinsey scale." Still, that the show doesn't insist on a sexuality binary is perhaps its most evolved achievement. Some inmates identify as lesbians, some as bisexuals, and some as women who are in prison and still want to have sex … All of it is a stunningly nuanced promotion of sex and gender fluidity -- especially impressive for a show whose chief project isn't necessarily to provide it.

So what is my point exactly? The point I am trying to make is that we are living in a society that is at a point where unoriginal ideas and characters in film and television are just not sufficient enough.

We need more movies like Enough Said and television shows like Orange is the New Black with writers who are not afraid to push boundaries, write complex, non-clichéd characters and write stories that are, well, for lack of a better word, refreshing. 

 The Cast of Orange is the New Black

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