Weeds

*note* I change all of the post times to central standard in the Post Options area of every new post, so the time 9:37 really IS 9:37

My First choice for a telly show for the third media lit blog would have been Shameless by Paul Abbott.  Unfortunately Shameless is an import from Channel 4 in the UK.  Even though American and British values overlap in many ways they are not perfectly the same, and in the end I thought that the project definitely called for an American show.  That limits my selection a bit.  I don't watch much American TV as censorship deeply perturbs me.  Because of this I'm limited to the channels IFC, Sundance, or any premium movie channel, so I decided to go with the hit Showtime programme Weeds.

Weeds is a show whose main character, Nancy Botwin, a widowed suburban California mother who struggles to keep up monetarily with the lifestyle that she has had since before the death of husband.  In order to pay the bills and keep her family satisfied she turns to dealing weed (street weed, as selling to the California government would be legal as California has medical marijuana).  This illustrates the american value of having material comfort.  In order to keep up with her neighbours-conformity-, while also providing the newest and best for her children Silas and Shane and her brother in law Andy, such as a car for Silas or cable to keep Silas-and Andy (PPV anyone?)-occupied.  If she didn't have a steady flow of income-even from an illegal source-, Nancy would be seen somewhat as a failure in her slice of suburbia. 

In order to provide all of these amenities to her family Nancy is very active in her work, she deals to all of the suburbanites who like to keep it secret, as well as expanding to colleges and other areas, even making a cover business for her dealings.  Nancy is quite the entrepreneur, even having paid workers like Sanjay under her.  If one value is shown the most during the show, it's Activity and Work, and similarly to this her work leads to Achievement and success.

The show also takes on the value of freedom.  In one case it's that Nancy is showing freedom and individualism by creating her own business, albeit an illegal business.  The show also tackles freedom of speech, in such issues as a student protesting Bush's Iraq war, and when non-religious jew Andy Botwin decided to capitalize on the success of Passion of the Christ by making a T-shirt with the crucifixion and the words Christ died for your sins, only the shirt had a typo and it ended up being Chris died for your sins.  Later, when the younger Botwin son Shane wore the shirt to school the principal and the PTA made a huge deal of the "anti-christian" label on the shirt, which shows Conformity again, yet in a caustic way, criticizing hypocritical fundamentalists, who also try, during the course of the series, to fire a gay gym teacher, which of course they fail at, and open-mindedness prevails. 

The last thing the show illustrates  is youthfulness.  Most of the characters are young or youngish and beautiful.  As well as illustrating the physical youthfulness, it also shows the mental traits.  In one episode when Nancy catches Silas and his girlfriend having sex she doesn't go all afterschool special on them, she merely made sure they were sufficiently educated on safe-sex and talking to Silas' girlfriend about her feeling, because she can't control whether or not they have sex, which is a very modern and young outlook.

Weeds is a boundary-pushing show that is geared toward a more liberal audience, and while the main storyline is something that is definitely, at this time, illegal, it still is a very positive show that tries to instill in its audience all of the positive values of America.