The show’s center, three college buddies—Joe, Owen, and Terry (played by Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, and Scott Bakula respectively) share an emotional history that allows them to be more honest with their feelings than your average male. They verbalize all the unsaid thoughts that gnaw at mid-lifers from, “How did I get here?” to “Where am I going next?”

Those uncertainties fueled the origins of the program.  Co-creators Romano and Mike Royce found themselves asking those very questions.  Both men, who have been in each other’s orbits for twenty-five years, had traveled the stand-up comic road.  Romano’s  Everybody Loves Raymond ended in 2005.  Seeing that not too many shows were staking out this territory, they decided to tackle the topic.

I spoke with Los Angeles based Royce by telephone to discuss the season, the characters, and the creative intention.  With some of the same speech inflections as Joe, Royce told me that they were able to build a solid base of female viewers, who were not football enthusiasts, in the original Monday slot.  The current stats by gender fluctuate, but often have women outnumbering men.  Royce attributes that to the fact that the show is a relationship drama, with “women getting a peek at the male psyche.”  When I suggested that the series had a feminist bent, equating feminism with humanism, he replied, “I’m happy to take that.”

We talked about the scripts—including the “colonoscopy” episode where the friends decide to take their tests together, making a trip out of it. Since the procedure is a test that you take at 50, Royce and Romano decide to run with that as a jumping off point.

The episodes are multi-layered.  Different story strands that seem independent and organic always echo a theme or insight, experienced in different ways by the individual characters.  Royce said, “We always try to be very precise with the writing.  Everything is adding up to something.  From the music to the title — there’s a reason.”

The dialogue nails it.  It can spring from an occurrence like Owen holding the door for two twenty-something women who look right through him—thus creating a catalyst for an ensuing riff on waning sexual attractiveness. Often it’s just a simple one liner, like Joe declaring, “You kicked your anxiety in the balls today.” Men of A Certain Age pivots from casual off-the-cuff conversations where the friends compare their “asses,” to admissions of waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning—with the existential dilemma drenching them in sweat. It may not be the way Sartre put it, but you get the message, in the gut, loud and clear.

The metaphors abound as each man digs around inside his own dreams, aspirations, and failures.  For Joe, it’s his talent at golf and his struggle with gambling.  Terry works to parse out his aging actor conflicts and the disconnect between what should have been and what is, in both his career and his relationships.  Owen, who has achieved success in his marriage (to a fully drawn wife played to perfection by Lisa Gay Hamilton) and home life, has a major challenge with a sabotaging father whom he still deferentially calls “Daddy.”

Royce, Romano, and the writing team flesh out a rich ensemble of supporting players. They stand as individuals, while giving insights into the primary trio.  Joe’s employees, the salespeople at the Thoreau car dealership, children, parents and friends—all become fodder to help examine the vagaries of life.  Joe, a West Coast Woody Allen type, sees himself in his son’s anxiety attacks.  He questions how to carve out a new life as a divorced man. Juxtaposed are story lines that include his father’s new sweetheart, and his interaction with his daughter’s boyfriend—who just happens to be using his bathroom after a coital encounter with his little girl.

Royce explained that the goal was “to make the comedy funny and have the drama affecting.”  It works.  This year, Men of a Certain Age was one of three television shows to get the prestigious Peabody Award.

Life is messy.  Men of a Certain Age allows the audience to follow the men’s triumphs and disappointments as they struggle through challenges and choices, one day at a time, trying to figure it all out.  As Owen chides Terry, “You think you’re the only one with problems? Grow up!”  What could be better than getting a reality check wrapped in a laugh?

With just the final episodes remaining, the complete seasons have been posted online at tnt.tv. Hopefully TNT knows that it has a gem—and will pick up a third year.

Photos courtesy of Danny Feld/TNT

“What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful?” That question was asked of comedy star and actress Margaret Cho when she was a guest on a radio show. The person posing the question was a male disc jockey. Totally taken aback by the effrontery of the query, Cho responded, “What do you mean?”

Her interviewer continued, “What if you woke up tomorrow and you were blonde, and you had blue eyes, and you were 5’11”, and you weighed 100 pounds, and you were beautiful? What would you do?” Cho, with rapier wit replied, “I probably wouldn’t get up because I’d be too weak to stand.” (Note: The Metropolitan Life weight tables for women put a small framed woman of that height at the starting weight of 138; a large framed woman is within the healthy range at up to 170 pounds.)

Everyday young girls and women are being bombarded with images that set the standards for what constitutes visual attractiveness in our culture. Cho knows about these strictures first hand, and addresses them in her standup comedy special on Showtime entitled “Beautiful.” Filmed nine days before the presidential election, Cho’s act is political, provocative, and at times raunchy. Taking on issues of race, sexuality, and identity, Cho – in her fifth stand-up comedy film – recounts her experience and reaction to the radio personality who felt that she was missing the “beauty boat.”

“I felt sorry for him,” Cho tells the audience, “because if that’s the only kind of person you think is beautiful, you must not see very much beauty at all in the world.”  Using a deadpan delivery she told the crowd, “I’m into complimenting myself, and I think you should do the same.” Rhetorically asking, “What is beautiful?” she informed her listeners, “I’m coming out of the beautiful closet.”

With Proposition 8 on California’s ballot just over a week away from the date of her performance, she stated, ”I think it’s very political to feel beautiful, especially if you’re queer. Because you have to take on the world every day of your life to survive.”

Cho speaks from first hand experience about the perils of what can happen when you try to conform to an ideal that doesn’t speak to your personal truth. In 1994, she was tapped to star in the first “Asian-American” sitcom on broadcast television. The show, “All American Girl” went through several phases as the creators debated if Cho was “too Asian or not sufficiently Asian.” The final product got watered down, as network executives feared that the content was “too ethnic.” That wasn’t their only concern. They criticized Cho’s physical appearance and her face structure (too round). As a result, she starved herself for weeks to achieve a weight loss that would be commensurate with their expectations. The goal was to have the right look in time to shoot the pilot episode. As Cho told me when we spoke by telephone, the result was not just a thinner Margaret Cho. Due to the crash diet she had undertaken, she developed kidney failure. The irony was that in order to play the role of herself, Cho had to morph into a different individual.

“All American Girl” was replaced in the line-up with “The Drew Carey Show.” Cho pointed out that a double standard was at play. Why wasn’t Carey, also a comedian, judged by his looks?

Cho qualified “eating disorders as a terminal disease.” “Women don’t live their lives fully because they are always concerned about if they are thin enough to be attractive, instead of accepting their weight.” For her, the struggle began at an early age; she had been dieting since the age of five. “I got it from my Mother,” she said, referencing the stereotypical Asian female body type as “birdlike.”

Growing up, she felt out of place. When Hollywood came calling, it reactivated all of her childhood fears and insecurities. Not eating for a month to prepare herself for the debut episode of her show, Cho created health complications that still linger. Looking back, she depicts the experience as “very hard,” but something that she learned from. “I didn’t have to participate,” she stated, “but I survived.”

Cho is currently a member of the cast of Lifetime’s new series “Drop Dead Diva,” which premiered on July 12. The story line follows a shallow wanna-be model, who unexpectedly dies in a car crash and comes back to life in the body of a “plus-size brilliant attorney.” Cho is on hand as her assistant, helping her to navigate the ramifications of her new physical presence. Lifetime is partnering with two non-profit organizations to drive a conversation about “being healthy at every size.” Working with Jess Weiner, self-esteem and body image expert, mylifetime.com is featuring “toolkits” to help audiences explore the topics presented in each episode.

Fifteen years after “All American Girl,” women are still struggling to break free from the parameters of “conventional beauty.” With Margaret Cho telling it like it is, the fight might become a little easier.

This article originally appeared on the women’s healthsite  Empowher.

Through her panoply of characters – some of them celebrity impersonations – Ullman tackles health care, the media, ageism, celebrity adoption, the financial crisis, gay marriage, and the demise of the honeybees among other topics. The accessible humor does nothing to hide her acerbic subtext in themes that recur throughout the series.

One of her vehicles, morning anchor “Linda Alvarez,” asks her staff about an upcoming story. “She hanged herself in rehab with the strap of her Marc Jacobs bag. Is that entertainment or obituary…or both?” To comment on members of the Supreme Court, Ullman disappears into the persona of fashion designer Donna Karan, who is on a mission to redesign the judicial robes. (“The robes haven’t been updated since the Taft administration.”)

Taking on groupthink and cults, Ullman interweaves praying nun “Mother Superior Rose Panatella” with featured characters from a fundamentalist Mormon (FLDS) compound in Texas. As Panatella quizzically contemplates why women would want to live in a polygamous situation where they “all dress and look the same,” she begins to grasp some uncomfortable parallels.

Among her uncanny imitations, the Laura Bush portrayal stands out. The former First Lady asks her sleeping husband, “Do you ever wonder if you could have done things differently?”

Ullman uses “Lisa Penning,” soldier and mother, to examine the stresses facing those serving long tours of duty. (Her husband is also deployed.) While home on an abbreviated leave, Penning is faced with foreclosure. Her response to the bank’s offer of $2,000 for a house valued at $200,000 is totally logical in an Ullmanian universe.

Wearing multiple hats of executive producer and writer as well as performer, Ullman had plenty of insights to share. A multiple Emmy recipient, who first impressed the critics in 1981 for her work at Britain’s Royal Court Theatre, Ullman has thoroughly traversed the show biz system. She made it clear at the start of her sketch comedy career that she would not play the “busty bar maid” (adding she was not the Benny Hill type anyway), looking to English character actresses Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith as role models. But it was American stars such as Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin, and Gilda Radner who were her trailblazers. Radner was a particular inspiration because “she was as funny as the guys … and she wrote her own stuff.”

Regarding women in the field today, Ullman spoke of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. “Tina Fey’s been a wonderful breakthrough for us,” she said, adding that television is a much more welcoming medium, particularly as “film is just terrifying for women right now. There’s nothing if you’re over thirty-five–unless you’re Meryl Streep.” Ullman prefers cable for its artistic latitude. Yet television has its limits. She noted that in network “women get daytime,” quipping, “We can elect a black man, but we can’t get a woman in night time television!” Ullman acknowledged that Chelsea Handler had started to make a dent with her format on cable’s E! Networks.

While “interpreting America” in her series, Ullman zones in on one of her top concerns. “I care about women aging with dignity,” she said. So slipping in “under the guise of humor” are the travails of older flight attendant “Dee McNally,” who started her career at the time of “Fly Me” glamour. Ullman scrutinized how stewardesses from the Middle East and Singapore still have the “I Dream of Jeanie” outfits, reflecting the male corporate ideal. Ullman morphed into an American aviation executive when she exclaimed, “Goddamn it! We lost control of how we make the girls look.”

Work has already started on the third season. Ullman gathers her news and information from a range of sources that include both old and new media. Some of her previous incarnations will be back while new ones enter the pantheon. Plenty of material remains to be mined on her favorite targets–reality shows, the unaffordable cost of healthcare, teenage pregnancy. “You have to question your own beliefs,” Ullman tells me.

It is a sure thing that Ullman will continue pushing the envelope on the audience’s core value system, as well as her own.

The article originally appeared at The Women’s Media Center website

Photos credits: Cliff Lipson/Showtime

The program begins each week with a free falling man, accompanied by music with ominous overtones.  The stage is set for a time of duplictiousness, when people were not sure of who they were, but knew who it was not safe to be.  Weiner uses the Madison Avenue advertising agency, Sterling Cooper, as his setting. Their job is to sell the American public a version of what life should be.  The team of executives uses its expertise to put forth a model where truth and deception are intrinsically intertwined.

Weiner treads the line between presenting male and female characters as stereotypes to be judged, and evolving personalities with deep, rich complexity. He explores each individual’s interior landscape, a place they are not yet willing or able to go to.  At the center of the drama is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the quintessentially tall, dark, and handsome man. A strong, silent type who can’t express his emotions to his wife, the roots of his psychological conflict are revealed mid-season.  In one of the last episodes, we see how while serving in the Korean War, he exchanges his name and dog tags with another soldier who has been killed.  He takes on the dead man’s name, obliterating his birth history of origin. Draper invents a fabricated identity for himself in the same way he will later develop ad campaigns for clients.  His personal story becomes a metaphor for the theme of the show.  How we design ourselves to present to the world, within the context of our particular culture.  The Fifties were the ultimate period of contrived appearances and deceptive artifice.  That way of life had to lead to the explosion of the 1960’s, because so many people could no longer afford to implode.

In looking at the four primary female characters, we see a spectrum of types emblematic of the time frame.  They are all white, reflecting the slice of pie Weiner has cut.  One, Rachel, is Jewish – which puts her squarely in the “outsider” zone.  When she comes to the agency looking for counsel on how to reposition her business, it is decided that a Jewish staff member should be present at the meeting.  They finally locate an employee…someone who works in the mailroom. Rachel is independent, honest, and able to function as an equal in a man’s world, creating a counterpoint to Don’s wife Betty.  When queried by e-mail about her character, actress Maggie Seff described her as “a woman ahead of her time.”   It is significant that although she and Don are so obviously different, that they connect on a deeply instinctual level.

Betty (January Jones) is the classic Grace Kelly prototype.  At the start of the series we see her suffering from numbness in her hands, a somatic condition that is the manifestation of her anxiety and emotional conflict.  She begins seeing a classic Freudian therapist, who reports to her husband on her progress (a nod to the disregard of patient/doctor privilege).  Betty knows that something is wrong, but she can’t put her finger on what it is.  She has suffered the loss of her mother, and has incidents of behavior that raise serious red flags. She wanders around her suburban kitchen in the middle of the day smoking, drinking coffee, and wearing her nighttime negligee. You can palpably feel the suffocation of this mother of two, the proverbial canary in a gilded cage.  Would this Bryn Mawr graduate be holding her personality together, instead of devolving into a woman infantilized by her spouse, if her circumstances were different? Not getting the companionship or passion she craves from Don, she is resigned to being another planet in his orbit.  It is painful hearing him chastise her about allowing an air-conditioning representative into their home with the accusation, “You let a salesman into my house?”  When wandering around a shopping parking lot, after learning that her husband has been calling her therapist, she despairs that she has no one to talk to.  The perfectly captured colors of the cars, her shirtdress, the supermarket, and the boxy flatness of the scene, all contribute to a postcard vision of an American nightmare.

Within the office, two distinctly different “working girls” represent the old options and the new possibilities. Actress Christina Hendricks, who portrays Joan, qualifies her character as “a strong, bossy, organized, fashionable, lonely woman.”  In the classic secretary vs. wife scenario, Joan offers the boss she is having an affair with a mirror from which he can admire his power and virility. The liaison comes to an end after he suffers a heart attack and reevaluates his lifestyle.  When they meet for a scene of closure his emotional revelation is, “You are the finest piece of ass I’ve ever had.”   Then again, this is a man whose philosophical musings include, “God closes a door and he opens a dress.”

Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) comes to the agency as the prototype of the young woman of the 60’s who will be challenged by the forces and turmoil that the decade will unleash.  Without a college education, she will use her innate talent and ambition to rise above the limited expectations of the typing pool, and realize that despite obstacles there are other possibilities for her.  She rejects Joan’s tutelage, and sees that the power of her brain can be as potent as her body and her looks.  As described by Elizabeth Moss, Peggy is “very driven” and wants to “genuinely do a good job and prove herself.”  As she evolves in the series, we see her leaving the female beehive and being given more responsibility when she is promoted to the position of junior copywriter. We later witness her hiring talent for a commercial.  The way in which she handles the interaction raises the uncertainty of whether she is going to bring something new to the game, or handle situations with the same lack of sensitivity as the male paradigm.

Woven throughout the show are glimpses of behavior and trends that will inform our current way of life. We see the first selling of the presidency in the Kennedy vs. Nixon race, as candidates are packaged as a product. In a quintessential piece of symbolism, the final episode features Don selling the concept of the “slide carousel” as the epitome of how to capture those sequential special moments that make up a life. He knows better than anyone how the Kodak moment is just a doppelganger for the authentic truth, which lurks beneath the surface of the perfect photographic image.

Mad Men allows us to look back at our recent history, and see not only to what extent circumstances are different, but also the ways in which they are still the same.  The media and advertising machines continue to grind, just the vocabulary is different.  A woman and a black man are running for President, but inequities persist and abound.  Abortion is perilously under attack, and Hurricane Katrina forced the nation to look closely at the part race plays in America.  Gays and lesbians may be out, but the religious right is working hard to fight what progress has been made.

Matthew Weiner has created a “humanist” show that allows us to ponder our past, question our future, and hopefully bring those insights into our present.  I am looking forward to Season 2.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.