What the X-Mas break gave me was time to brush up on some oldies. I had started watching Breaking Bad a few months ago and seing Bryan Cranston as Walter White made me want to revisit Malcolm in the Middle (MITM) to appreciate the acting range Cranston displays throughout his work. I very much like MITM, without being a hardcore fan, because several things make the show stand out from standard Sitcoms that we forget a month after they are canceled.
The first seasons center our attention around Malcolm obviously but as you may have noticed in eponymous Sitcoms, rarely is the "hero" the best part of the show. By "best" I mean funny, interesting and worth studying. The adventures Malcolm has don't really matter to me, but the decorum and method of presenting them are particularly fascinating.
The whole show is based on Malcolm growing up in a dysfunctional household that manages nonetheless to get through money problems, criminal problems, moral problems, and so on. With a weird father, Hal, very passionate about everything he does, but then abandons after a week, and an overly authoritative mother, Lois, that meddles way too much in her sons' personal life, Malcolm wanders through his teens as an awkward genius.
Let's take a look at the "Middle" part of the show's name.
Malcolm is in the middle in every aspect of his life :
- In his family, he is in the middle of two brothers (for those who still live at home, Francis is a whole different issue). Resse is cruel and stupid but rather cunning when it comes to some elaborate prank he wants to pull on somebody and Dewey is intelligent, discreet and ever so calm compared to Resse. Malcolm, between his two brothers, is pulled back and forth without really choosing a side which makes him lose much of his personality.
- Again, in his family, his parents are two very different people that balance each other out and don't hesitate to switch roles. Malcolm has a very hard time defining a role model in his father or mother.
- At school, he is in the genius class and yet does not appear to be a nerd like his classmates. With his lumberjack shirts over dirty T-shirts, he actually is the "cool" kid within the nerds. Half nerd, half cool, he is completely divided and still doesn't know where he belongs.
So those are the basic reasons why he is "In The Middle" as it were. We must understand "In The Middle" as divided and not as balanced because Malcolm actually has a few mental problems in my opinion.
Always in a sort of limbo between two extremes, Malcolm doesn't have a real confidant. He has friends, or rather, A friend in Steve, but no one to talk to in search of moral guidance.
If you were in his situation, what would you do ? Talk to yourself. Find and imaginary friend to share your problems and lift the weight of school and family.
Malcolm creates his imaginary friend by talking directly to the camera making us, the viewers, his confidant. But we are a strange confidant for we cannot respond. Therefore we incarnate Malcolm's imaginary friend by taking the role of Gods. We are all-knowing and all-seing but do not interfere with the mortal world. Malcolm sees in us the possibility of redemption by trying to explain why he does one thing or another and also the opportunity to find some sort of ethical or moral outcome to his doings.
That's why I believe Malcolm suffers from a case of Schizophrenia. He invents this audience he continually talks to because he has no anchor around him to keep him in the real world. This gets even more intense when he adresses us while doing something with another character. For example, he may be making out with a girl only to stop and tell us something.
But I know what you are thinking : if he really was Schizophrenic, people around him would notice !
Well my answer might not satisfy you but I believe that outside the family, Malcolm is imagining everything we see. All his friends, his teachers, his girlfriends, etc... They are all figments of his imagination explaining why they can be so extreme. Here lies the real paradoxe with Malcolm if you believe my theory, he creates the outside world to tame his family life because he is always in the middle, but the imaginary world he creates is just as extreme and divided as the real world.
Well, that's my take on MITM. Might be a little bit overanalyzed in some ways but hey, that's how I see the show !
Share, Comment and Subscribe !
BTW, Happy New Year to all of you !!!!
Thank you,
TRJ
No comments:
Post a Comment