August 2, 2024: Martin Sheen Studying: Grace and Frankie

[Thiscoming weekend, the greatMartin Sheen celebrates his 84th birthday. Sheen’s life has been asimpressiveand inspiring as his iconic career, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handfulof threads to both. Leading up to a special tribute to a pair of even moreinspiring Americans!]

[NB. Thispost originally appeared in 2015, but I would argue all of its points onlydeepened with all the G&F seasonssince that early point.]

On twoways the Netflix sitcom pushes our cultural boundaries, and one way it happilydoes not.

TheNetflix original sitcom Graceand Frankie (2015) features one of the more distinctive and yet appropriately2015 premises I’ve seen: two lifelong male friends and law partners come out totheir wives as gay, in love with each other, and leaving their wives for eachother and a planned gay marriage. The premise alone would make the show one ofthe more groundbreaking on our cultural landscape, but the fact that the twomen are played by two of our most prominent and respected actors, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, makesthis nuanced, complex, warm, and so so thoroughly human portrayal of a same-sexrelationship even more striking. It seems to me that a greal deal more has beenwritten about Transparent and Jeffrey Tambor’s portrayal of thatshow’s transgender protagonist than about Sheen and Waterston in Grace and Frankie—and without takinganything away from Tambor’s equally nuanced and impressive performance [ED: althoughhe sure took a lot away from it himself with hisown actions], I would argue that seeing Sheen and Waterston in these rolesrepresents an equally significant step forward in our cultural representationsof the spectrums of sexuality, sexual preference, and identity in America.

What’sparticularly interesting about Grace andFrankie, moreover, is that Sheen and Waterston’s characters and storylinerepresents only half of the show’s primary focuses—and the other half, focusedon the responses and next steps and identities and perspectives of their formerwives Grace and Frankie, is in its own ways just as ground-breaking. Played tocomic, tragic, human perfection by legendary actresses Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, thesetwo characters represent to my mind two of the most in-depth and multi-layeredportrayals of older women in television history. That there has been somebehind the scenes controversy about the paychecks of Fonda and Tomlin incomparison to those of Sheen and Waterston, while of course frustrating andtied to broadercurrent issues and arguments, also seems to add one more pitch-perfectlayer to the ways in which the show asks us to think about the experiences,lives, and worlds of older women in a society that tends (as this scene highlights withparticular clarity) not to include them in our cultural landscape much at all.In a year when the single leading candidate for the presidency (I refuse toconsider Donald Trump for that title; [2024 Ben: man I wish I had been right])is herself a woman over 65, Grace andFrankie engages with our current moment in this important way as well.

At thetime that it’s four main characters and their storylines are thus sogroundbreaking, however, I would argue (to parallel things I said about Longmire in thispost) that in its use of the conventionsand traditions of the sitcom form Graceand Frankie feels very comfortably familiar. That might be one reason why Transparent, which blends genres muchmore into something like adramedy, has received more critical attention and popular buzz (of coursethe parallelsto the Caitlyn Jenner story are another such reason). Yet just because Grace and Frankie stays more withinthose familiar sitcom lines (featuring everything from physical comedy andwacky misunderstandings to recurring catchphrases and jokes) doesn’t make itless stylistically successful—indeed, I might argue that using such familiarforms yet making them feel fresh and funny is itself a significant aestheticsuccess, and one that Grace and Frankie mostdefinitely achieved for this viewer. Moreover, there’s a reason why the sitcom is one of television’s oldestand most lasting forms—it taps into some of our most enduringaudience desires, our needs for laughter and comfort that not only continueinto our present moment, but have an even more necessary place alongside theantiheroes and dark worlds that constitute so much of the best ofcurrent television. Just one more reason why I’m thankful for Grace and Frankie.

Tributepost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?