You hear and read a lot of commentary on how America’s values are skidding down the slippery slope at breakneck speed. But you don’t typically hear much about how this country’s optimism may be waning. Even in difficult times, Americans have often been called among the most cheerful people on earth.
But that may be changing, some commentators suggest. And that attitudinal shift seems to be becoming more apparent as the new fall TV lineup emerges.
New York Times writer Alessandra Stanley—after watching new shows such as Raising Hope, Outsourced, Mike & Molly, and My Generation, as well as sophomore programs such as The Middle (pictured to the right) and Hung—wrote that many TV programs are running low on a little thing called hope:
[The] decline and the erosion of the American dream infuse public discourse, so it's inevitable that a streak of pessimism courses through the best new fall shows. These are comedies and dramas that don't fight the notion of a downward slide; they embrace it with the rueful self-mockery that buoys other former empires, be they British, Italian or French. … This season's offerings posit a more lasting condition of lowered expectations for life. … Failure, or the fear of failure, isn't new to television, obviously. It's an anxiety so widely shared that it can best be treated as a joke. It's almost impossible to think of a television comedy that isn't rooted in some kind of humiliating setback, from I Love Lucy to Arrested Development and Modern Family. The only difference this season is that most characters rise and pratfall against a backdrop of national malaise instead of affluence or bourgeois propriety.
When even our typically sanguine outlook and programming take a melancholy turn, are viewers (and our country) past the tipping point and heading toward emotional depression?
When the 2011 fall season rolls around, I hope both we and Ms. Stanley see more buoyancy.
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