Vice Principals (2016-)

When I watch Vice Principals, I laugh. Every beat makes the line before it reverberate, every framing is purposeful, every facial expression fuels an emotion.

Screenshot from trailer

Danny McBride, from the little that I have seen of him, loves to make fun of society. This show, created by McBride and Jody Hill, and starring McBride as "Mr. Gamby", our protagonist, makes fun of society by playing with power dynamics. The person who usually has the power (a white dude) is in a position where the power he has come to expect and know is slipping through his fingers. Mr. Gamby is in charge of discipline, and is very fond of his job, taking a student's  slightest misstep as an almost personal affront, much to the annoyance of students and fellow staff alike. He expects to get a promotion from Vice Principal to Principal of the high school he works at, proudly, confidently prepared to accept the honor that is surely due to him. But the position that was never his to begin with is usurped by an outsider new to the district. 

Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) is given the much-desired Principal's throne. She is a black woman, recently divorced, a mother of two teenage boys, new to the area and determined to run her school successfully. This, well this simply cannot be. Mr. Gamby and his former nemesis/fellow Vice Principal, Lee Russel (Walt Goggins), who was also convinced that he deserved the principal position, team up to take Belinda Brown down, determined that one of them will get to take the place that they see as rightfully theirs (why it is rightfully theirs is a question the audience asks over and over, as they plot greater and greater absurdities to get their way).

Screenshot from trailer

The series is successful because it humanizes every character. No character is flat; no character is perfectly good, nor perfectly bad. We, the audience, is endeared to a character one moment, and hate them the next, in a very human, real way. 

Hyperbole is used constantly, and there is a theatrical tone to every episode. The exaggerations aren't used for cheap laughs, rather the immensity of the smallest elements of real life are played with, allowing the audience to feel the embarrassment, the anticipation, the what have you, of every moment. This tool can also be used to make a statement. For example, an obnoxious, asshole of a man bullies Lee's wife in a grocery store. As she walks away he tells her that she would be prettier if she smiled more. Even if you don't get why women get pissed when men tell them to smile more, you should understand that this guy is a complete asshole and that saying that in that moment is totally shitty. He is legitimately scaring this woman, yet the way this absurdly muscular man speaks and acts, with dramatized muscle-man arghhh, is also, while not being unserious, funny.

Screenshot from trailer

That speaks to what I think makes this show truly great. Vice Principals is filled with situations that make shitty people and shitty actions laughable. Not laughable in the sense that they are not serious, or shitty, but laughable in the sense that the wrongdoers, while we hate them and are angry at them for their actions, are so obviously sad, weak, and insecure that their absurd actions are funny.  They are funny because they are such an obvious display of their flaws. They are funny because no matter what awful shit they do, the person they are trying to take down prevails, and is constantly shown as the better person.

In this goofy show. there is a such a powerful, unspoken narrative of race, gender, sexuality, age, and status/power in middle class America. This narrative is very present, obviously very intentional, but doesn't ever force itself down your throat; it uses subtlety (please don't think that hyperbole and subtlety can't work together), and that is so desperately hard to find in most television. 

Screenshot from trailer

There are constant moments, jokes with the audience, whose humor is created less out of a punchline or a slapstick, but out of well-used music, perfectly timed, sincere lines, on-point facial expressions, precise camera work--this show uses all of the skills that are in the hands of the creators, and uses them well. The show doesn't try to be fancy, it just tries to be good. 

Is that so much to ask of television?

Watch the trailer here