Writers in Sitcoms

Home Economics is not a great show, but I do enjoy watching Topher Grace be a struggling novelist. And it’s nice to have another sitcom to look forward to each week, along with Abbott Elementary and the new Reboot (Rachel Bloom! Keegan-Michael Key!).

Sitcoms are so important.

Also, it really is nice to have a show understand that being a successful author likely doesn’t mean actually making any money and involves a whole lot of ups & downs. Most depictions of authors are so far off from reality that Home Economics is actually really surprisingly good.

Even Jane The Virgin — which was an awesome show in so, so many ways — was really infuriating when it came to Jane’s sudden, extreme success at the end. I found Jane as a writer really relatable through so much of the show… and then that end felt like kind of a betrayal.

To be fair, I’d have probably felt betrayed by Jane The Virgin ending just because I liked it and didn’t want it to go away. Still. Writers rarely have sudden success like that. And if they do, it probably comes with a lot of complications.

I guess, at some level, I’m gonna feel a little betrayed by any super-relatable story about a writer that then ends with Yay! Sudden Massive Success!

I had the same problem with the end of The Devil Wears Prada (talking about the book here).

 

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