“WandaVision is brilliant television, and quite possibly the best TV show about television to… ever exist? By pairing Wanda Maximoff, a character born of great tragedy, with sitcoms, the purest form of TV comfort food, WandaVision expertly unpacks why the traditional sitcom matters. Wanda turns to it because we turn to sitcoms, again and again, and we have for 70 years. WandaVision is the first TV show to say, loud and clear, that rewatching your faves is how we all deal with trauma. It conveys how that trauma sneaks into our viewing, too, by punctuating each episode with seconds of increasing dread. There’s a sense that something larger is wrong here… and then it’s easy to forget because, hey, hijinks! This is why sitcoms work. We get swept up in the rhythm of setups and punchlines and we find low-key relief in the knowledge that things are going to turn out all right. We—and this is what WandaVision is all about, at least at first—find surrogate families with characters played by actors on television. We get valid, legitimate, and unexpected guidance and inspiration from these shows. It’s not an exaggeration to say that watching Marty Crane give Frasier a hug feels a little like getting the validation you’ve always longed for from your father. And if not that scenario, then slot in one from Cheers, Friends, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Family Matters, The Golden Girls, Community, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, etc. If you love a sitcom, you probably love it because something about it gives you what you need—what you’re not getting anywhere else. We are all Wanda Maximoff when we binge these shows, especially right now.”
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
titsay
jbbartram-illu
