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Forsaken by the networks, the post-college set has turned to the Web for revealing shows (full-frontal coed nudity!) about people just like them.
By Judy Berman
Read more: Internet, Arts & Entertainment, World Wide Web, Arts & Entertainment TV Features, Judy Berman
Courtesy IFC.com
Nikita Word and Joe Swanberg in a scene from "Young American Bodies."
June 18, 2008 | If you're an oversexed teen, a harried parent or a frustrated office worker, you are well represented on prime-time television. But if you're a 20-something, like me, you are out of luck. For some reason, the networks just aren't scripting shows about us -- which seems strange, given that networks live and die by their success with the 18-to-34 demographic.
Of course, people my age are all over that questionably named genre "reality TV." We compete for love, money, stardom and success; we submit to radical makeovers in front of millions; and, for some unknown reason, we allow cameras to follow us as we get wasted, start fistfights and fall into bed with strangers (and that's all on just one episode of "The Real World"). This is all well and good for those blessed with strong singing voices or cursed with a penchant for binge drinking and exhibitionism, but what about the rest of us?
Not surprisingly, some of the best representations of post-college, pre-marriage existence can be found on the Internet -- the same realm where we forge our careers, look for dates and communicate with friends. One of the best examples is Joe Swanberg's online series "Young American Bodies," now in its third season, which chronicles the romantic tribulations of young people in Chicago. The 26-year-old director of independent movies like "Hannah Takes the Stairs," "LOL" and "Kissing on the Mouth," Swanberg belongs to what film critics call the "mumblecore" movement, a loose cadre of lo-fi, low-budget filmmakers whose movies contain unflinchingly realistic, dialogue-heavy depictions of post-adolescent life.
In "Young American Bodies," Swanberg, who often acts in his own projects, stars as awkward, self-sabotaging Ben, who carries a torch for his neighbor Maggie (Mollie Leibovitz), going so far as to run out on a girl he's about to sleep with when she calls. But rather than devolve into the tired boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back story line that plagues most romantic comedies, Ben's long-standing crush fades into the background as he and Maggie both pursue a handful of unsatisfying relationships and halfhearted hookups.
Originally launched by Nerve, "Young American Bodies" lives up to its title. The short, roughly seven-minute long, episodes have always been packed with full-frontal, coed nudity, and that hasn't changed now that the series has moved to IFC.com for its third season, which began last month, with a new episode premiering each weekday for a total of 12. (All three seasons are archived online.) This isn't porn, though, not by a long shot, and the bodies, while attractive, don't aim for the kind of airbrushed fantasia you might find on late-night Cinemax. A scene from the first season shows Ben, naked and scowling, on a bathroom scale.
Ben and Maggie's friends Dia (Swanberg's wife, co-producer Kris Williams) and Kelly (Frank V. Ross) are a couple negotiating between the freedom of youth and the confines of a committed relationship. Though she loves her boyfriend, Dia is conflicted about moving in with him, becoming engaged and embarking on a lifetime of monogamy. The rest of the rotating cast runs the gamut of post-collegiate relationship angst: When Noah (Nathan Adloff) proposes to Casey (Eve Rounds), she surprises him -- and herself -- by refusing; then after disappearing for an entire season, Noah returns, with a surprise in store.
While some movie critics appreciate Swanberg's unadorned style, recognizing in it the cinéma vérité influence of John Cassavetes and Dogme 95, others find it chatty, boring and narcissistic. It's true that Swanberg's plots aren't thrilling, but they also aren't the point. He has set out to document the lives of people like him and his friends, and at that he is wildly successful. The dialogue is so realistic that, for days after watching an episode of "Young American Bodies," I often find myself musing that I've just had a very "Joe Swanberg" conversation. In an episode from Season 2, Ben and Casey are chewing on pieces of candy, and he asks her what she thinks of it. Instead of replying, she says, "Where's Maggie?" Ben doesn't answer her question either. "The cup's warm because I just washed it," he tells Casey, handing her a glass. "Do you ever have that, where you have a warm cup and cold water?" They go on to discuss, at length, the price of some fancy chocolate that Ben offers her. Swanberg is just as interested in the way characters spend idle moments and handle awkward situations as he is in how they deal with major decisions and life-shaking change.
A number of other online series by and about 20-somethings -- such as "We Need Girlfriends," a comedy about three guys who've recently graduated from college and been dumped by their longtime significant others, and "Clark and Michael," which stars "Superbad's" Michael Cera and follows two friends struggling to succeed in Hollywood -- also opt for speech that sounds improvised, complete with hesitation, stammering and, yes, even mumbling. This isn't just because young people's speech abounds with such verbal tics as "like," "um" and "you know"; the blogs we read, e-mails we send and reality television we watch have made us hyperaware of the stiff, rehearsed dialogue that still pervades most scripted programming. When the repartee starts to feel a bit too witty, or a character's monologue sounds too articulate or practiced, we have trouble suspending our disbelief.
While Swanberg and his actors make naturalistic dialogue seem effortless, other, failed attempts at realism show that it's harder than it looks. The project of two co-workers at the sophomoric site CollegeHumor, "Jake and Amir's" sloppily cut two-minute skits exhibit a sense of humor that favors awkwardness, homoeroticism and bodily fluids. Set among the workstations of Jake and Amir's open-plan office, the action often consists solely of a conversation between the two main characters, who are supposedly exaggerated versions of the real Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld, as they sit at their computers. Amir is arrogant, abrasive and obsessed with straight-man Jake in what's often portrayed as a more-than-just-friends way. In an episode called "Jake's Computer," Amir takes over his desk-mate's computer, and Jake returns to find that Amir has been visiting Web sites with names like "whereexactlydoesjakelive.com" and "wheredoesjakehangoutafterwork.com." As with most of the "Jake and Amir" videos, there is no clear punch line. We're left with two guys bullshitting at their desks, repeating words like "chill" ad nauseam.
"Jake and Amir" falls prey to the potentially paralyzing sense of self-awareness that plagues the so-called MySpace generation. Their interests, behavior and even language are all insincere jokes meant to obscure any potential point of vulnerability. Because we constantly submit ourselves for the approval of anyone who cares to look up our Facebook profile, browse our Last.fm account, or glance at our GoogleChat away message, we obsessively curate our public personae. In an episode of "We Need Girlfriends," one character looks up his ex's new boyfriend on MySpace and is disgusted to find that his favorite movie is "Boondock Saints."
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