"Younger" announces its intentions early--in the first episode, in fact. It's a throwaway scene. Sutton Foster has been tasked with making Jane Austen "sexy" for young readers. The means of attack will be a Jane Austen Twitter account. As Jane Austen, Sutton Foster crazily Tweets: "Mr. Darcy hath just sent to me an etching of his manhood! Shall I respond?"
Look past a few things here. For example: Mr. Darcy, a fictional character, would not correspond with Jane Austen, an actual human being. And: Mr. Darcy would not do something as coarse as an iPhone-manhood-photo assault. And: Someone as shrewd and as relentlessly NOT needy as Jane Austen would never take to Twitter to ask what she should do, if accosted in this particular way.
Look past all of that. Darren Starr is saying something pretty clear here: "My show will take some of its cues from Jane Austen. This will be a romantic comedy, in the tradition of 'Emma' or 'Pride and Prejudice.' That's why--in the pilot--in the very first episode--Ms. Austen is getting pride of place."
Mr. Starr, a gay man, once responsible for "Sex and the City," has many, many gears turning. An Austenian plot turns on role-playing and misinterpretation: Think of Anne Elliott, in "Persuasion," misreading cues from Wentworth, and also misrepresenting herself as someone aloof, detached. "Younger" has a similar story about masks and social performances. Unable to land an entry-level job in publishing, Foster pretends to be a twentysomething, and suddenly the world seems to open up for her. At the same time, like an Austen heroine, Foster is learning that appearances are not always reality: For example, an apparent grown-up, on a date, actually reveals himself to be a child when he spends large portions of the dinner on the phone and forgets to show an interest in Ms. Foster's life. Jane would understand.
Ms. Austen was interested in small-scale politics and betrayal. In "Persuasion," for example, a distant cousin of Anne's does a terrible misdeed, permanently hurting Anne's friend. This same cousin then presents himself as an upstanding citizen, worthy of Anne's hand in marriage. Anne's friend must watch in painful silence as the man takes credit for things he hasn't actually done, things he hasn't attained. In the same way, in "Younger," Sutton Foster's character must cope with a duplicitous boss. "Why not have a hip new writer do the 'Northanger Abbey' introduction?" Foster asks. The boss--a delicious Miriam Shorr--scoffs and says, "That's a ridiculous idea." She then slightly repackages the idea--"We'll have Jennifer Weiner do a preface! She's in-house!"--and takes full credit, basking in her colleagues' approval. This small bit of deceit will almost certainly have repercussions later on. We're hooked.
As a graduate of eight rocky months in the publishing industry, I can comment on a few facets of "Younger" with some authority, or at least pseudo-authority. Miriam Shorr says, "I have a stack of applicants here, and they're all former English majors, and they're all from the Ivy League." True. All of my Random House colleagues seemed to be mildly-depressed Brown U graduates with English degrees, and they were all living in apartments heavily-subsidized by (worried and rich) helicopter parents. "Younger" also shrewdly observes that publishing tends to promote and dump. "I'm twenty-seven and I'm an associate editor!" says Duff's character. I heard this again and again. The twentysomething, proud of his or her achievement, would then find that all that glitters is not gold. A stagnant career. There was something tricky about becoming an actual editor, like making partner in a law firm. It happened for very few people.
One thing I really didn't love, in the second episode: Foster has to promote a new work by Joyce Carol Oates, so she has young women all over the world go topless, on Twitter, and hold up banners, saying, "SHOW US YOUR OATES!" This is meant to be a kind of triumph for Foster's character, but I wish the writers would have commented more on the shallowness and cynicism of the move. Oates has spent decades looking hard at strange, sordid pockets of America, and she is committed to expanding our understanding of how people behave. (She has mixed results.) Whatever you want to say about Oates, you can't really argue that she is anything other than a literary True Believer, an artist in search of nuance, someone who wants to study the world and resist the urge to be glib. The toplessness-for-Oates campaign seems like a betrayal of Oates's actual spirit, and it's something very different from real evidence of having read, and thought about, an Oates novel. I imagine I'm not alone in this feeling of slight queasiness.
But: A minor quibble. I loved the first two episodes. I look forward to more Austen-ish twists. And--as if this show needed my endorsement!--I recommend that you spend some time with "Younger."
Look past a few things here. For example: Mr. Darcy, a fictional character, would not correspond with Jane Austen, an actual human being. And: Mr. Darcy would not do something as coarse as an iPhone-manhood-photo assault. And: Someone as shrewd and as relentlessly NOT needy as Jane Austen would never take to Twitter to ask what she should do, if accosted in this particular way.
Look past all of that. Darren Starr is saying something pretty clear here: "My show will take some of its cues from Jane Austen. This will be a romantic comedy, in the tradition of 'Emma' or 'Pride and Prejudice.' That's why--in the pilot--in the very first episode--Ms. Austen is getting pride of place."
Mr. Starr, a gay man, once responsible for "Sex and the City," has many, many gears turning. An Austenian plot turns on role-playing and misinterpretation: Think of Anne Elliott, in "Persuasion," misreading cues from Wentworth, and also misrepresenting herself as someone aloof, detached. "Younger" has a similar story about masks and social performances. Unable to land an entry-level job in publishing, Foster pretends to be a twentysomething, and suddenly the world seems to open up for her. At the same time, like an Austen heroine, Foster is learning that appearances are not always reality: For example, an apparent grown-up, on a date, actually reveals himself to be a child when he spends large portions of the dinner on the phone and forgets to show an interest in Ms. Foster's life. Jane would understand.
Ms. Austen was interested in small-scale politics and betrayal. In "Persuasion," for example, a distant cousin of Anne's does a terrible misdeed, permanently hurting Anne's friend. This same cousin then presents himself as an upstanding citizen, worthy of Anne's hand in marriage. Anne's friend must watch in painful silence as the man takes credit for things he hasn't actually done, things he hasn't attained. In the same way, in "Younger," Sutton Foster's character must cope with a duplicitous boss. "Why not have a hip new writer do the 'Northanger Abbey' introduction?" Foster asks. The boss--a delicious Miriam Shorr--scoffs and says, "That's a ridiculous idea." She then slightly repackages the idea--"We'll have Jennifer Weiner do a preface! She's in-house!"--and takes full credit, basking in her colleagues' approval. This small bit of deceit will almost certainly have repercussions later on. We're hooked.
As a graduate of eight rocky months in the publishing industry, I can comment on a few facets of "Younger" with some authority, or at least pseudo-authority. Miriam Shorr says, "I have a stack of applicants here, and they're all former English majors, and they're all from the Ivy League." True. All of my Random House colleagues seemed to be mildly-depressed Brown U graduates with English degrees, and they were all living in apartments heavily-subsidized by (worried and rich) helicopter parents. "Younger" also shrewdly observes that publishing tends to promote and dump. "I'm twenty-seven and I'm an associate editor!" says Duff's character. I heard this again and again. The twentysomething, proud of his or her achievement, would then find that all that glitters is not gold. A stagnant career. There was something tricky about becoming an actual editor, like making partner in a law firm. It happened for very few people.
One thing I really didn't love, in the second episode: Foster has to promote a new work by Joyce Carol Oates, so she has young women all over the world go topless, on Twitter, and hold up banners, saying, "SHOW US YOUR OATES!" This is meant to be a kind of triumph for Foster's character, but I wish the writers would have commented more on the shallowness and cynicism of the move. Oates has spent decades looking hard at strange, sordid pockets of America, and she is committed to expanding our understanding of how people behave. (She has mixed results.) Whatever you want to say about Oates, you can't really argue that she is anything other than a literary True Believer, an artist in search of nuance, someone who wants to study the world and resist the urge to be glib. The toplessness-for-Oates campaign seems like a betrayal of Oates's actual spirit, and it's something very different from real evidence of having read, and thought about, an Oates novel. I imagine I'm not alone in this feeling of slight queasiness.
But: A minor quibble. I loved the first two episodes. I look forward to more Austen-ish twists. And--as if this show needed my endorsement!--I recommend that you spend some time with "Younger."
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