Why We Love Big Love
Sex, religion, intolerance, acceptance, more sex — who can resist?
Cable television loves nothing more than pushing the envelope , but HBO went a few extra steps when it created Big Love in 2006.
Just who wants to watch the travails of a polygamist and his three doting wives?
But Big Love proved difficult to push aside based on moral repulsion alone, and the show’s third season debut, at 9 p.m. EST Sunday, offers more of the same dramatic rewards.
Sex. Religion. Intolerance. Acceptance. It’s all here, and the new episodes blend those ingredients with considerable finesse.
It’s still dicey enough material to push some viewers permanently away, but those who embraced Tony Soprano’s whack-a-gangster exploits should find enough moral wiggle room to relish the drama here.
The season starts with Bill (Bill Paxton, the show’s rock) zeroing in on a fourth wife, a waitress named Ana (Branka Katic) who isn’t sure she’s ready to be part of an “extended family.”
Neither are the existing wives, although a group date featuring Ana and the blushing brides supplies early comic relief.
Big Love’s villain, Roman (Harry Dean Stanton ), is rotting in jail on charges he had sex with minors. It’s a story ripped from semi-recent headlines , but the images of the conservatively dressed women who Roman took advantage of is eerily up to date.
Stanton, his face full of stubble and double crossing thoughts, oozes evil even from behind bars. It’s a safe bet he won’t remain incarcerated by the time the season wraps.
Besides, how can you keep such a great character down for long?
And Big Love is full of ‘em, from the despicable Frank (Bruce Dern) to Nicki (Chloe Sevigny), Bill’s most stubborn wife — and the only one to wear traditional Mormon garb.
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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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19 Comments
1. D. Grant Chee----:Sober minded individuals shirk such drivel due to it being drivel. Thanks to the millions of
Jan 18, 2009 - 3:49 am 2. Rather Read: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.
Jan 18, 2009 - 4:41 am 3. Marie Claude: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
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:08 am 4. RE:Just more garbage. Anyone wasting time on such crap really need to get a life – for their own sake.
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:42 am 5. Byron Dickens:So this is what I’m missing by not watching TV? It’s true: I’m really not missing anything.
Jan 18, 2009 - 6:00 am 6. LeighB: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.
Jan 18, 2009 - 8:44 am 7. rob:Its so inline with the filthy minds of the people in the medias. Another cesspool.
Jan 18, 2009 - 11:49 am 8. NoTV: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.
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:25 pm 9. squidly8: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?”
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:23 pm 10. paparay:“Big Love?” Never heard of it until now. Doesn’t interest me in the least.
“Who is John Galt?”
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:27 pm 11. Angry White Dude: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
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:32 pm 12. G Alston: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.
Jan 18, 2009 - 11:18 pm 13. mac: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.
Jan 19, 2009 - 12:10 am 14. Maggie: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.
Jan 20, 2009 - 6:54 am 15. Fred Pennsylvania: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!
Jan 20, 2009 - 10:56 am 16. Mike2: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.
Jan 21, 2009 - 2:21 am 17. Hector:—————————————–
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.
Jan 21, 2009 - 4:31 pm 18. whiskey: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.
Jan 21, 2009 - 6:15 pm 19. Tea: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.
Feb 25, 2009 - 11:14 am