Tapping the zeitgest at USA Networks
March 8, 2010Jon Brooks Comments OffAnthropologist/marketer Grant McCracken thinks he’s found what’s driving the success of USA Networks’ programming. This post called “The secret script at USA Networks (aka the enmeshed male)” explains:
I know you have watched something on USA Networks. After all, its a hit machine. It has given us “Burn Notice,” “White Collar,” “Royal Pains,” and “In Plain Sight…”
I was thinking about these programs and I noticed a similarity I had not seen before…
“Burn Notice” is about a former spy who has been booted out of the intelligence community and must now rely on his best friend, his sometime girl friend, and often his mother to continue in a low rent of espionage.
“Royal Pains” is about a doctor who was drummed out of his prestigious job as a New York City surgeon and must now rely on his brother, his girlfriend and a rich fella to eck out of living as a concierge doctor, low rent medicine indeed.
“White Collar” is about a jewel thief who has been fished out of jail by the FBI and can now do nothing on his own without the approval of his handler. He still gets up to crime but it’s now a far cry from the old days of a glamorous thief.
“In Plain Sight” is about a woman who works as Witness Relocation sheriff and because she, her mother, her sister are emotional train wrecks of one kind or another, she manages only with the help of her long suffering partner, her boss, her secretary and her boyfriend.
See a pattern? It is most clear in the case of the first three shows. A man riding high is brought low. He now survives by dint of his wits and only because he relies on people he never relied on before. This man is now thoroughly enmeshed in a small group of friends and relatives. Without them he is nothing.
Ok, let’s say you’re Monni Adams, of the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Professor Adams is famous for having detected and then explained patterns in Indonesian textiles. Explain, please, why this new pattern is so much in evidence in these USA Network shows.
What is happening in American culture that might help explain this new vision of our masculinity? After all, American culture has long been home to a notion of the unconstrained, rogue male. Consider all those tradtional TV heroes and movie stars, men who answered to no one. Why a new pattern? Why an enmeshed male?
Check out the post comments for some theories…
