By Josh Oakley
Unbreakable Kimmy
Schmidt, the new sitcom from Tina Fey & Robert Carlock debuting today
on Netflix, resembles some of the best shows of the last decade while managing
to carve out its own unique identity. Fey & Carlock also created 30 ROCK, a show that Kimmy Schmidt vividly recalls from its
comic sensibility to a similar bouncy score. But even if the exterior most
closely resembles that program, its heart, mentality and ethos brings to mind
another NBC Thursday night sitcom (hey, remember those?).
At the center of the comparison is the fact that Kimmy is
more of a Leslie Knope than a Liz Lemon. She comes from a more troubled background,
having been kidnapped and held in a bunker for fifteen years. But her
confidence and optimism are just as oppressive as Knope’s. She radiates the
belief that anything can be overcome, hence the show’s name, and refuses to let
the fools that surround her stand in her way. Though she’s more naïve than
Knope, she doesn’t let that affect her strength in the face of adversity. The
characters are far from carbon copies, partially due to the performances that
created them. Amy Poehler brought a knowingness to Knope that played against
any mistakes she made. Ellie Kemper, in the role of Kimmy Schmidt, is more
wide-eyed and less positive about the little things like math or getting into
strange men’s trunks. But, just like Knope, she’s confident about the big
things, the stuff that matters, like being there for loved ones or standing up
for oneself. Kemper is brilliant here, carving out the cloth of characters who
came before her to create a new person wholly worth investing in.
The world around Kimmy resembles Parks & Rec in other ways. This is especially apparent late in
the season, when the character returns to her hometown, which just so happens
to be in Indiana (you’ll know you’re there when you pass the third water park).
That town, like Pawnee, is filled with buffoons having that fascinating paradox
of being easily swayed and wildly stubborn. Yet their simplemindedness is just
another hurdle for Kimmy to clear, one that shows how much she’s grown in her
time post-captivity (there’s a perfectly valid argument to made that both this
show and Parks condescends to
small-town communities, but Schmidt pokes
fun at most everyone’s expense).
Both shows also share a feminist bent, one sorely needed in
the television landscape. In its final season, Parks & Rec had a wonderful episode dedicated to dismantling
the stupidity behind “Men’s Rights Activists” culminating in the
already-classic line “you’re ridiculous and men’s rights is nothing”. But the
show was sharply feminist in subtler ways as well, supporting female characters
without making them rely on men as crutches. Kimmy Schmidt goes a step further, as the men take a backseat to
the women, and one episode (“Kimmy Rides a Bike!”) is entirely devoted to
tearing down and ridiculing the patriarchy. If I’m recalling correctly, there’s
not a single straight white man on the show who isn’t made to be an absolute
fool or villain. There’s a chance I’ve missed out on something, but that seems
exceedingly rare. The final episode hinges on the connection between women who
both literally and figuratively support each other in a climactic scene. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt does feature
love interests (though the main one is an Asian man, something still rare in
pop culture) but doesn’t rely on them the way shows often do. This is, first
and foremost, a show about a woman empowering herself after being literally
trapped by a man for over a decade.
Perhaps the biggest similarity between the show that
recently left us and the one we recently gained is the warmth and generosity
that underlies all of the above points. As previously mentioned, the final
episode of Kimmy Schmidt’s first
season depends on connection and care, overcoming the perils of the past to
fight together. Kimmy’s friendship with her roommate Titus (the fantastically
expressive Tituss Burgess) is one built on mutual admiration. Titus occasionally slips
(namely in one hysterical bit where he attempts to support her but keeps saying
the wrong thing), but he’s ultimately there for her from the beginning. This
may sound simple, but the network of support that flows through this show is
difficult to pull off without becoming saccharine, something both Kimmy Schmidt and Parks & Rec know how to avoid. They aren’t the same show by a
long-shot, and nothing can truly fill the void left by Parks & Recreation, but this comes awfully close. By knowing
when to show its heart and knowing how to conquer the patriarchy, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt builds on the
successes of the past. Characters worth rooting for at the center of great
television shows can often seem in short supply, but Kimmy hilariously and
profoundly enters the canon. She’s more than unbreakable, she’s building
something new.
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