Why We Love Big Love
As if Bill doesn’t have enough problems to deal with, including an upcoming block party and a cancer scare with one of his wives, he’s trying to join with a Native American casino operator to expand his Home Depot-style empire. But cultural differences, and not the ones you think, could derail his vision.
Big Love depicts a squeaky clean family that, on the surface, would be embraced by values voters. They care about their loved ones first, don’t cuss, consider being parents of utmost importance, and they’re never seen loafing. Plus, they’re faithful to their religion.
They just so happen to be polygamists.
That setup lets the show’s writers riff on themes of alienation and spirituality that overlap the real-life worries faced by more accepted branches of religion.
“Our way of life is under attack. … Don’t you watch the news?” asks Nicki at one point. It’s no accident that Sevigny gets the best lines. She’s the iciest presence in the series, a scene stealer who does it all without drawing undue attention to her.
But like nearly every element in Big Love, her performances are modulated just right to make the blend of high drama and social commentary stick.
Ginnifer Goodwin continues to find new shadings to Margene, the youngest wife who clearly is coming into her own this season.
The show’s setting alone makes it noteworthy. It’s a suburban expanse teaming with cul-de-sacs and neatly trimmed hedges. But it never mocks middle American dreams or showcase characters dying to break free from their malaise a la those Revolutionary Roadsters .
All Bill’s family wants is to live a “normal” life, one free of prying eyes and the potential for persecution around every corner.
A few of the many new subplots prove tepid, as if they were ripped for demographic purposes from a Beverly Hills, 90210 table reading. And a sudden character turn by one of Bill’s trusted colleagues feels like the kind of stunt shows pull off when their creative energies start to wane.
The show should also do a better job explaining the appeal of polygamy to Ana — why would this fascinating beauty even consider signing up as Wife No. 4?
It would be easy to castigate the show for not passing judgment on Bill’s arrangement, but an entire series built around hectoring wouldn’t be worth anyone’s time. Big Love hardly makes the polygamist lifestyle look appealing. Bill appears exhausted by his husbandly duties, from satisfying his spouses to raising enough money to support his large brood.
And while FX’s Nip/Tuck must get more outrageous with every episode, Big Love manages to introduce most new storylines without it feeling like a series of stunts.
The show’s biggest strength — and potential weakness — is its running theme. Will the family get exposed and face prosecution?
That threat remains as vital to the series as the sexual chemistry between Sam and Diane on Cheers. Once it’s gone … what’s left?
For now, enjoy Big Love‘s smorgasbord of savory characters and subplots while the chance for exposure remains a very real possibility.
Sober minded individuals shirk such drivel due to it being drivel. Thanks to the millions of
sponges in our society the steady drip of moral erosion prevails. We need a fresh look at reality before we self destruct and take our next generation along for the sex party of the doomed. Sex is good, healthy and necessary yet we spoil sex through overexpoure–even on our news; women journalist’s shove it in our face as though we need reminding they are right there on the tv screen—looky–look at sexy me! Enough!
Umm, no thank you. I was recently home for a couple of weeks, and spent the time watching DVDs and reading. Why? Because there was nothing at all interesting to watch on TV, least of all this.
women journalist’s shove it in our face as though we need reminding they are right there on the tv screen—looky–look at sexy me! Enough!
give t’em a burqua
Just more garbage. Anyone wasting time on such crap really need to get a life – for their own sake.
So this is what I’m missing by not watching TV? It’s true: I’m really not missing anything.
I am offended by this show and its attempt to make polygamy acceptable. On the other hand it did me a favor and I like saving money on my cable bill by canceling HBO. This is utter trash and I cannot believe any actors would be associated with it.
Its so inline with the filthy minds of the people in the medias. Another cesspool.
Canceled my DirecTV service 2 weeks ago. Reading this further confirms I made the right decision. No more insulting juvenile programming invading my home. No more annoying AARP commercials begging me to buy their inferior over-priced insurance. And no more Billy Mays or SCAMWOWs.
If enough people start turning out, and the media giants see their viewership and profits shrinking perhaps they’ll focus on something more appealing to a broader audience.
What exactly is “traditional mormon garb”? I don’t think anyone in my family wears anything other “normal garb” – tee shirts, jeans, suits, dresses, skirts, shorts, button down shirts.
This is exactly the problem with shows like this. It perpetuates stereotypes that are so outrageously false or misleading that anyone not familiar with mormons think this is what mormons are all about. The polygamists are in no way, shape or form affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints but shows like this allude that they are. It plays to the lazy who want their education of all things to come in the form of a movie or TV show. “They said it on TV, it must be true!”
I have only one wife, I want only one wife and I am not on the prowl for another. How does that joke go about the lady being caught standing over her husband’s body saying “How do I re-load this thing?”
“Big Love?” Never heard of it until now. Doesn’t interest me in the least.
“Who is John Galt?”
This show is a disgrace. I saw it a few times before canceling HBO. It’s a shot at good Mormon people who are not polygamists. Also, the one wife to whom you refer doesn’t wear “traditional Mormon garb.” She wears traditional backwoods polygamist garb like we saw on that ranch in Texas. I have Mormon friends and their wives are, unfortunately for them, quite happy with Nordstrom.
Angry White Dude
Trash? You guys need to get out more.
The nuclear family isn’t the only possible option, and this show depicts the pluses and minuses of one of the other options. How does polygamy work? Are they nuts? Are polygamists misunderstood? Good? Bad? Can a man truly love many wives? This series explores these questions. An interesting thing here; if the world upended and a great number of males died off this would be one way of basing a society. Mankind has experimented with this many times worldwide. Even biblical figures had multiple wives. Oh wait, that’s where polygamists got the idea. Never mind.
Take the same show and cast it as the life and times of a biblical figure from ages ago and I’m sure that most who think it’s trash would revere it as historical, a beautiful examination and rendering of the time. Oh wait, that’s pretty much what they’re doing, it’s just recast to the modern era. Never mind.
I’ve never watched this tripe and never will. Moreover, not that Hanks has come out with his true feelings on how “un-American” Prop 8 voters were, he’ll never see another movie of his earn one cent from me.
Hollyweird is so corrupt and degenerate we’d all be better off if they just shut the place down. The vast majority of their product is simply contemptible, which isn’t surprising given the people who produce it. Anyone who watches American television these days is doing to their mind what smoking cigarettes does to their lungs.
Hey mac – great analogy – “Anyone who watches American television these days is doing to their mind what smoking cigarettes does to their lungs.”
However I would exempt Lost and 24.
Five years after I gave up HBO, thanks for the update…
…which makes me so very glad glad, once again, that I gave up HBO. What worthless, voyeuristic crap!
And to think that Tom Hanks went from the brilliant miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” to serving as executive producer for this pathetic, degenerate rubbish. How tragic … especially for viewers!
Now I know why I don’t pay for HBO, that and a steady diet of other crap they air that I don’t like. Maybe now that The One has taken office he will heal the airwaves too.
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John Galt
Mormons are not polygamists. Haven’t been for a hundred years. You cannot belong to the Mormon church and be a polygamist. Not allowed period. There is no such thing as traditional Mormon garb. You wouldn’t be able to pick out a Mormon in a crowd based on how he or she is dressed. Too bad shows like this misinform so blatantly.
Toto — you could not be more wrong. Let’s count the ways.
First, the show is written, created, and produced by two gay guys as an explicit parable to normalize gay relationships, and “gay up” marriage to gay norms, rather than make gays adapt to monogamy. The creators are quite open about this.
Second, polygamy is icky and awful and creates if it gets widespread enough, truly horrific violence. Think that Arab/Muslim and African people are “just evil?” Think again, the polygamy means that a few men have most women and most men have NO WOMEN. Bill’s marriage to three women means that TWO MEN already have no wives. Adding another means ANOTHER MAN goes without. It speaks to pure power and wealth rather than romantic love as pairing off.
The commenter above is correct, there are many other ways of forming families, and the nuclear family is an oddity of Western civilization. It is why European civilization went from Dark Ages backwater to international dominator in a few centuries, and why other cultures are weak, riven with violence, and unable to get men to cooperate (because they are always fighting over women).
Big Love is something only Gay Men and Women could create and watch. It’s Joe Average’s nightmare — a bunch of “Bills” no matter how nice scooping up all the women and leaving them with violence as the only way to even the score. Of course Gay Men understand NOTHING about Straight Men, nothing at all, and don’t get it. Neither do women, who delude themselves about what life under polygamy is really like (ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
That brings up another larger point, most of TV has become a Gay and Female ghetto, largely decadent and debased because of it, completely unable to relate to the concerns of the average man.
To the point that Big Love promotes acceptance of polygamy, it is a dagger right in the heart of male cooperation and the foundation of Western society (the nuclear family). To the point that it normalizes Gay behavior (promiscuity in marriage, multiple partners, etc.) it also is a dagger right in the heart of the nuclear family and the precursor of social collapse such as the White British underclass (chronicled by Theodore Dalrymple) and the Black Ghetto.
NOT MORMON!
The people depicted here, although they share a history with modern day “Mormons,” are NOT MORMONS!
They are members of the FLDS sect and their “traditional garb” is reflective of the FLDS standards. Mormons, although they may dress a little more conservatively than many of todays provacative standards, look no more different than anyone else.
This show, although unique is continually blurring the lines between the Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”) and the FLDS sect.